Overworked, underpaid: Lady health workers block highway

The women have not been given permanent jobs or paid in four months.

SUKKUR:

Hundreds of lady health workers (LHWs) staged a sit-in at Indus Highway near Jamali Wah in Jacobabad demanding the salaries that they have not been paid Rs7,000 for the last four months.

On Saturday, the women got so desperate that the lady health workers association chairperson, Bushra Arain, and two others tried to set themselves on fire, but were stopped by the police.

Arain led the enraged LHWs to the Indus Highway near Jamali Wah. They shouted slogans against the Sindh government and settled on the road, suspending traffic for over two hours.

Arain said that the government is denying the workers salaries, bringing their families to the brink of starvation. Despite repeated promises, LHWs are not being regularised and now they are not even being paid, she complained.

Arain, the Jacobabad chapter general secretary and finance secretary, Kiran Hajani, and Robina Dayo then attempted to set themselves on fire but the police intervened.

The Jacobabad revenue and health EDO came to the protest site and negotiated with the women. The officers reportedly contacted the Sindh chief minister’s secretariat and assured the women that their services would be regularised and salaries disbursed which effectively ended the protest.

Earlier, the women also had a run-in with over three dozen Sindh People’s Student Federation (SPSF) workers as they tried to hold their own rally against the police.

The SPSF workers asked the LHWs to let them pass through, but the women refused. They then tried to force their way through and a scuffle ensued in which the SPSF workers reportedly misbehaved with the women, pushed them aside and passed through their sit-in. Arain has demanded action against them.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 9^th, 2011.