‘Only Sindh has recognised home-based workers’

Ghani hopes that other provinces will follow Sindh in the best practices for these workers

KARACHI: Sindh was the first province not only in Pakistan but in South Asia to have passed the Home-Based Workers Act in 2018, which gave these workers a status of recognised workers with social and legal protections like those of other workers, claimed Provincial Minister for Information and Labour Sindh Saeed Ghani.

He said that this while addressing a two-day conference regarding the inter-provincial exchange of experience by parliamentarians and senior government officials on the economic empowerment of home-based workers in Pakistan as the chief guest on Monday. The event was organised by the United Nations Women Pakistan in collaboration with the Sindh Labour and Human Resource Department.

"We are now working on the rules of business and looking at finalising them by the middle of March this year," he said, hoping that other provinces would follow in Sindh's footsteps to form the best practices for home-based workers.

According to UN Women's Status Report 2016 on Women's Economic Participation and Empowerment in Pakistan, around 65 per cent of the home-based workers in the country, who contribute Rs400 billion to the economy, are women. However, these labourers receive the lowest wages and do not account for legal protection and social security.

LHRD secretary Abdul Rasheed Solangi said that the provincial government had already recognized the home-based workers in its policy to formalise the informal sector and resolve the issues of this marginalised labour force.

Meanwhile, speakers highlighted a three-year project supported by the Royal Norwegian Embassy, titled 'Economic Empowerment of Women Home-Based Workers and Excluded Groups in Pakistan,' which mainly focused on capacity-building and creating linkages with conventional and digital markets for these segments, including transgenders and women with disabilities. The project also advocated for social protection and legislation on these workers' social and economic empowerment.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai, Royal Norwegian Embassy second secretary Ingvild Haugland Tokheim, Punjab MPA Uzma Kardar, KP Women Parliamentary Caucus chairperson Maliha Asghar Khan, UN Women Pakistan deputy country representative Aisha Mukhtar, the labour secretaries from all four provinces, and senior officials from government departments, UN Women and partner organisations, participated on the first day of the event.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2020.