The Home-Based Women Workers Federation (HBWWF) and other organisations have demanded from the Sindh government to start the practical implementation of the Sindh Home-Based Worker Act immediately.
They made these demands during a press conference at the Karachi Press Club, held to mark the 20th anniversary of the Kathmandu Declaration.
Commemorating the declaration, the workers' bodies stated that workers and social organisations from Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had announced during a three-day South Asian Conference, held by the United Nations Women from October 18, 2000 to October 20, 2000, that national policies would be formed to give home-based workers rights, social security and legal identity in their respective countries.
Following this, October 20 is observed as Home-Based Workers' Day across the world.
However, the speakers regretted, most countries had failed to implement the agreed clauses of the meeting, while the economic crisis had worsened following the coronavirus pandemic and millions of workers, especially those employed in the informal sector, were rendered jobless.
The speakers maintained that the International Monetary Fund-tailored policies in Pakistan had ruined the economy and prices of various commodities have skyrocketed.
Moreover, due to the devaluation of the Pakistani rupee, the real wages of workers had reduced by 40 per cent, making the lives of working-class people miserable, they added.
The speakers highlighted that over 17 per cent of the national economy consisted of the informal sector, while 12 million workers from that sector and overall 18 million people had lost jobs during the pandemic.
They said the federal government had failed to provide legal identity to the home-based workers, however, adding that as a result of their 10 years of struggle, the Sindh government had announced a home-based workers policy and enacted a law to give them legal identity.
The activists said that though the Sindh government recognised home-based workers as legal labourers in 2018, but the federal government and other provinces did not focus on formulating laws in this regard. They lamented that even after two years of the act being formulate, it was yet to be implemented.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 21st, 2020.
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