Labour, rights activists call for completing registration of home-based workers

HYDERABAD: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) convened a meeting to discuss the economic empowerment of women working at home and vulnerable groups in Sindh.

Handicraft makers, activists of social organisations and human rights activists attended the meeting on Saturday.

Speaking on this occasion, HRCP council member advocate Parveen Soomro said that a woman who works at home is very weak economically despite working hard day and night.

They don’t get adequate wages for their work, nor do workers who produce handicrafts in spite of inadequate facilities, domestic problems, and hunger and poverty, and these women cannot even solve their own problems, she added.

Soomro said that we also need to learn new and modern ways to present our handiwork to the world, which is not a big problem in this era. The HRCP will help in all possible ways, said, adding that working women should come forward with their unions and register themselves under the labour law.

“Working women have the right to get better wages for their work, but this will happen only when working women come forward. If women are economically strong, our society will develop.”

Social activist Shaukat Soomro said that there is a need to support the handicrafts of women working at home, bring their handicrafts to the major markets of the country and ensure women can sell their handicrafts in the market. He said that by counselling women workers, women working at home should be connected with chambers and unions so that they can highlight their problems and make demands.

Union leader Shahida Khalid said that nine to ten thousand women are associated with bangle-making industry, but due to no increase in wages, it has become difficult for them to make ends meet in this period of inflation.

She said that women are suffering from diseases like tuberculosis, eye infections and joint pain as they have to constantly sit while working, but the government is not providing any health facilities to them.

Social activist Salim Jarwar said that the bill passed by the Sindh government should be implemented so that women artisans can be economically strong. He added that the registration of millions of home-based workers in Sindh who do sewing and other work needs to be completed.

Advocate Irshad Chana said that the labour law will be implemented only when the affected women workers come forward and raise their voices. In the law, the workers have many rights, but they do not get the rights, for which the human rights organisations should come forward to play their role, he said.

HRCP regional coordinator Ghaufrana Arain said that our aim is to economically strengthen the women working at home and implement the law made for them. It is necessary to form a union of artisan women and register them, and then their problems will be solved, she said.