Home-based workers: ‘Making less than Rs40 for 12 hours of work’

The often ignored group needs to be recognised, say activists.

LAHORE:

Home based women workers are paid meagerly, despite rendering 70 per cent of the work done by the ‘disorganised’ labour force in the country, said PML-Q MPA Seemal Kamran during a press conference of HomeNet Pakistan.

According to Maria Kokab of HomeNet Pakistan, in most of the cases, home-based women workers, who work for up to 12 hours, are paid less than Rs40 per day.

HomeNet Pakistan is a network of groups that works for the recognition and labour rights of home-based workers. Ms Kamran said that almost 7 million women, who fall into the category of home-based workers – stitching footballs, making bangles, preparing nimko and doing embroidery – are exploited by middlemen. Even though they work from morning till late at night, they are not compensated fairly or recognised as skilled labour. In addition, they face serious health issues; no old age benefits are available to them either, pointed out the MPA.

She said that she had submitted a bill for the protection of home-based women workers two years ago. It is now with the Standing Committee of Labour now, she told reporters.

Khalid Mahmood, Labor Education Foundation director, demanded that the government ratify the International Labour Organisation’s Convention C177 which binds its member countries to formulate a national policy about home-based workers. Mr Mahmood expressed concerns about the fate of the “National policy for home-based workers” after the passage of the 18th Amendment, after which Labour has become a provincial issue. The policy, he said, had already been approved by the provincial assemblies of Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Nazli Javaid of Labour Party Pakistan and an activist asked that home-based workers be given the same rights as factory workers, “Why are labour laws not applied to them even though they are [an integral] part of the workforce?” She also said that the only way forward was to form unions.

Maria Kokab of HomeNet Pakistan demanded that the Bureau of Statistics compile data about home-based women workers so that they can be organised and helped in a better way.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2011.