‘Women, children cheapest sources of labour but no one cares’

Speakers highlight the struggle and predicament of women labourers

KARACHI: Women and children have been the cheapest source of labour in Pakistan and seemingly, nobody cared enough to end their predicament, claimed speakers while addressing a session titled 'Yeh haath salamat hain jab tak' [Till these hands can labour], at the first Women Conference Arts Council on Saturday.

"We, unfortunately, live in a classist society where the working class, regardless of gender, has a lot to deal with. Now, imagine the struggle of a female labourer in [this] society that is, more so, spoilt by and reeking of patriarchy," said poet Kishwar Naheed, painting a dreary picture of the ordeal of women labourers.

Speaking along the same lines, National Organisation for Working Communities executive director Farhat Parveen referred to the confusion surrounding the definitions of "work and labour" and said that it was due to this ambiguity that people were not able to "fairly evaluate the performance of home-based female workers, who are mostly underpaid and more often than not unpaid."

She urged for initiatives by government bodies including the National Database Regulatory Authority to collect and document data on home-based female workers so that their plight, as well as their contribution to the economy, could be highlighted.

In this respect, Haleema Laghari, who has been associated with the Lady Health Workers (LHW) Programme for the past several years, said that the programme had been thriving post-2008, claiming that prior to that, the "injustice and failure of the Pakistan Peoples Party-led government to allocate budget for labourers" had hampered its operations.

However, "amid tyranny rose revolutionaries," she said, adding that their rigourous efforts bore fruit and the programme now worked in alliance with network of national and international bodies in Japan, Nepal, Bangladesh and across Pakistan, continuing its struggle and fight for the rights of lady health workers.

Like lady health workers, many a courageous woman in Pakistan have fought, rebelled and gone against the tide to fight the injustice meted out to female labourers and women in general.

Expressing confidence in them, Naheed, drawing the session to a close, hoped that the endeavours "of such dissidents would change the [patriarchal] narrative in the coming years."

Fatima Majeed of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum also spoke on the occasion, among others. 

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2020.