Women farm workers made aware of rights
A family harvests red chili peppers in Kunri, Pakistan, February 24, 2022. Devastating floods across Pakistan in August and September after several years of high temperatures, have left chilli farmers struggling in a country heavily dependent on agriculture, where officials have estimated $40 billion of flood damages. "When I was a child, the heat was never so intense. We used to have a plentiful crop, now it has become so hot, and the rains are so scarce that our yields have dwindled," farmer Leman Raj, 40, said. REUTERS
The federal and provincial governments should speed up their social protection schemes for women agriculture workers, said activists fighting for the rights of labourers and women cotton pickers.
They were speaking at the concluding session of a three-day leadership workshop for women cotton workers on climate adaptation social protection and occupational safety, along with communication and networking skills.
The workshop was organised by the Sindh Community Foundation (SCF). Civil society and labour rights activists including Sadia Baloch, Mirza Maqsood, Javed Soz, and Shahnaz Sheedi took the sessions.
The workshop trained two batches of 44 women cotton workers, office bearers of recently formed labour unions from 15 villages of the Matiari district. The workshop was delivered with sessions on occupational safety and health, climate change adaptation, and improving working conditions.
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At the concluding ceremony, SCF head Javed Soz said that the women agriculture workers, mainly cotton pickers, are the frontline to the climate shocks, they face harsh working conditions and less occupational and health safety which is very much necessary to address.
He said that depletion of the trees from the fields by the growers is unbalancing the biodiversity of the area. Green agriculture practices are beneficial for people and planet.
He said that growers are not taking climate change condition into the consideration which need to be adapted and follow the minimum wage law in the province.
Sindh Agriculture University Professor Dr Ismaeel Kumbhar said the climate change was a serious threat to agriculture production, as compared to last year this year cotton production has declined so it would ultimately impact the livelihoods of the cotton pickers.
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He emphasised that a tripartite mechanism to be established to address the issues of the agriculture sector and supply chain workers.
Shahnaz Sheedi of South Asia Partnership said that less decent working conditions also lead to lesser labour productivity so it is the need of the time that growers and government should make concrete efforts to create climate safety at the field levels.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2023.