WWA demands strict implementation of labour laws

Working women want fixed quota for women in jobs

PESHAWAR: Working women in the province have demanded that the parliament, at the national and provincial levels, improve labour legislation to the extent of making it more consistent and inclusive for women including a quota for women where a third of all jobs are given to women.

This was suggested by the Working Women Alliance (WWA) of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) in a women’s convention on Thursday as they presented a charter of demands which called for a review of all illegal labour practices and updating them as per current market demands.



The alliance stated that it had monitored various workplaces in the public, private and industrial sectors apart from interviewing around 200 women workers and found out that the working women are worst affected by the non-compliance of labour laws in these employment sectors.

It had been facilitated by the United Rural Development Organisation (URDO) with technical assistance from the Trust Democratic Education and Accountability (TDEA) under the Women Action for Better Workplaces (WABW) project.

The alliance demanded that public, private and industrial sectors must be compelled to provide separate washrooms for women apart from setting up daycare and breastfeeding facilities for women workers.



Moreover, they demanded that the code of conduct on anti-sexual harassment should also be prominently displayed in those organisations.

The alliance noted that there was a common misconception that the public sector violates fewer laws than the private sector.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 29^th, 2018.