or a year and a half, I worked at a garments factory as a packing worker,” says 35-year-old Yasmin Akhtar, a resident of Nishatabad. “When I went to the factory after the Eid holidays, the contractor told me that I did not need to come to work anymore,” she recounts.

“He said that the owners had decided to shut down two of the mills units so that there was no need for my services,” adds Yasmin. I ask if she was served a notice before she was fired. Yasmin shakes her head, “I did not receive any warning and had no time to prepare for what was coming,” she sighs.

According to Yasmin, she had started this job to support her husband, who is also employed at a garments shop. With the rising prices, she says, it was becoming difficult for him to meet the household expenses.

Yasmin is not alone. Thousands of women, employed at hundreds of factories and looms in Faisalabad, the textile capital of Pakistan which accounts for more than 60 per cent of Pakistan’s textile exports, are facing a similar predicament.

Many of the working-class women belonging to the city and its suburbs have lost their jobs in the recent crunch that started a few months ago. The garments sector had already been struggling when the situation was aggravated by an economic and energy crisis.

Citing the crisis and a drop in international demand for garments as their reasons, many of the factory owners decided to shut down their factories. Others tried to bring down their operating costs by reducing capacity and closing some of the units.

For the currently employed garments workers of Faisalabad, the message is clear: there is no such thing as job security. Their situation is precarious. For now, they have an income, but barely and the fragile arrangement can come to an end any day.

When the units shut down, women textile workers are the first to take a hit.

Yasmin points out this harsh reality. “Women do the same work as male workers but face discrimination in terms of pay and benefits,” she complains.

“Most male workers are paid Rs 25,000 to Rs 30,000 per month but women do not get more than Rs 15,000 for the same job,” she says.

Yasmin also recalls, “We (the women) were forced to work overtime and not compensated for it.”

“Some women workers were asked to do unpaid night duty. When they refused, they were fired right,” says Yasmin. “For over a year, I worked in difficult conditions but nobody blinked twice before firing me. I was neither served a notice nor got a severance pay,” she says.

The life of 50-year-old Naziran Bibi, who works at a brick kiln a few kilometres from the bypass on the road from Faisalabad to Jhang, lends another dimension to the challenges women workers face. Brick kiln workers often get ignored in the discourse surrounding wages and rights because they are based in rural areas.

Naziran Bibi says her family of five has been making bricks for decades.

“We go to the kiln at one o’clock and start working,” she says. “It is pitch-black when we start making bricks. We worry about snakebites, but we have no choice,” she says.

Bibi and her family work 12-hour shifts. “We can make about 1,000-1,200 bricks day,” she tells TNS, “For that number, we get paid Rs 1,000-1,200 a day.”

“This is the income our family has to live on,” says Bibi. She says it is getting harder to survive. “And there is no leave of absence if one falls sick. If one does not work, one loses the daily wage. Bibi says that most of the kiln workers have no social security cards.

Bibi says her life is limited to a mud house a few hundred metres away from the kiln. “I cannot afford to attend weddings, funerals or other social occasions. I confine myself to my house or work,” she says.

The working conditions are dismal. Brick kiln workers are prone to injuries and accidents. They are also more likely to develop respiratory conditions because they are exposed to dust, arsenic and toxic fumes from burning plastic.

According to Naziran Bibi, the dehumanising attitude of kiln owners is hard to miss. It shows in little things.

“When the workers go to the kiln owner to get their weekly wages, he is sitting on a charpoy. We, the workers, are made to sit on the ground,” she reports.

“This is a way of humiliating them so that they are always afraid of the owners and do not speak up about their exploitation,” she adds.

In Ghulam Muhammad Abad, one of the most densely populated parts of Faisalabad, Gulnaz Bibi, who lives with her husband and three children in a two-room rented house, has another story to share.

Gulnaz Bibi works as a night shift security guard at the district headquarters hospital.

“I have young children to take care of during the day. When my husband returns home from work in the evening, I leave the children with him and go to work,” she says.

She says she is paid Rs 15,000 per month by her employer. However, her salary is recorded as Rs. 25,000 (the minimum legal wage in the Punjab).

“I objected… but they said if you don’t want to work on these terms go home,” she says. “Sometimes we have to work overtime. We are not paid for that,” she adds.

Meanwhile, a large number of girls work as housemaids. While rallies and seminars were being organised across the country to mark the International Labour Day, doctors at the Faisalabad District Headquarters Hospital were conducting a medico-legal examination on two child maids.

They found cuts and on their faces. The eyes of one girl were swollen. The girls, 11 and 8 years old, who had worked as housemaids for a pittance of Rs 4,000 and 3,000 per month at a house in Khayaban Colony, were finally rescued by the Child Protection Bureau with the help of police.

The girls said they were routinely beaten for ‘stealing bread or not doing their work to the employer’s satisfaction’.properly.’

This was not the first reported incident of violence against child domestic workers in Faisalabad. Several such incidents have come to light over the recent months. Some of the domestic workers have died from the violence.

Besides working in difficult conditions, the working women are considered easy prey for all kinds of exploitation.

According to a World Bank report, in 2014, women workers made about 23 per cent of the labour force. The proportion came down to 21 per cent in 2021.

Pakistan’s rank in terms of women’s participation in the labour force came down from 147 in 2020 to 149 2021. In terms of gender pay gap the rank declined from 102 to 113. Ranking for the average income declined from 148 to 151.

Low labour force participation indicates a major loss of potential productivity. It is also unfortunate in terms of women’s empowerment.

According to a study by the Asian Development Bank, a majority of women in Pakistan want to work. One of the main reasons for not working is the mobility problems.

Women workers also face more risks than male workers in terms of social, cultural, and religious restrictions.

The writer has been associated with journalism for the past decade. 

He tweets @ naeemahmad876