Women farm workers

The Sindh Assembly has recently enacted a legislation named the Sindh Women Agriculture Workers law providing rights hitherto denied to women labourers in the farm, livestock and fisheries sectors. It concerns their remuneration and ensures measures for protection of their rights. The new law says women workers shall get the same remuneration for the same work as their male counterparts. The working day of a woman worker shall not exceed eight working hours, and shall not commence until one hour after daybreak, or continue beyond one hour prior to sunset; women workers shall take time off work due to sickness or for antenatal and postnatal care and routine check-ups; they are entitled to 120 days of maternity leave and Iddat leave; they shall have the right to breastfeed their children of up to two years in hygienic conditons; “they should have the right to access government agricultural, livestock, fisheries and other services, credit, social security, subsidies, and asset transfers in their own individual rights, or in association with other women agriculture workers.” Each of these workers shall perform work free from all forms of harassment. A woman agriculture worker shall have the right to receive a written contract of employment. The law allows these workers the right to form unions or associations. The law shall ensure that women workers are not discriminated against on the basis of gender, religion, caste and residential basis. It makes it mandatory for the government to maintain a register of women agriculture workers at every union council. The registered workers would be issued a Benazir Woman Agriculture Workers Card entitling them to receive certain benefits.

We have many laws but their implementation is weak. As for remuneration and paid leaves farmers might start calculating their financial implications and try to circumvent the law. A jurist has famously or notoriously said, “Laws are like cobwebs: too weak for the strong, and too strong for the weak.” 

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2019.

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