"It’s a 10-hour working day from 8am to 6pm. But the number of our working hours are not limited," says, Iftikhar Hussain, 25, a labourer doing work at a private construction site. "Both the employer and employee seem to be content with this schedule," he adds.

Does he think that longer working hours are an injustice? "I got this job with great effort so I cannot afford to lose it by asking the contractor to set an 8-hour working day," he says.

There are millions of informal workers who do not know their basic rights and are exploited.

The ordeal of longer working hours is faced by workers (male, female and juvenile) in the informal sector that are estimated to make up 70 per cent to 73 per cent of labour class in the country.

Pakistan Labour Force Survey 2013 categorises working beyond 50 hours a week as excessive working hours.

Informal workers, engaged in agriculture, construction, home-based jobs, shops, manufacturing industry, packaging, printing, waste-picking, furniture-making, transport, marble factories, etc, extend their services for more than eight hours. Most of them are denied a break during work hours.

The break varies from 20 minutes to one hour in accordance with the orders issued by the employer. Non-compliance leads to deductions in wages and, finally, termination from job. Home-Based Workers (HBWs), employees in shops and labourers in agri-industry, are most of the time not allowed a weekly holiday.

Being unregistered, unprotected, unorganised and unrecognized by law, workers in the informal sector do not get overtime. No national and provincial labour policies passed since Pakistan came into being entertains the rights of informal workers, their working condition and working hours. Till date, the informal sector is outside the preview of legal framework and national policy spectrum designed and implemented by the government.

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"It is not against ethics and law to set a 10-hour working day," says Mudassar Ali, a shop owner in Shah Alam Market. "In some cases, the employer also works 13 hours a day. More work means more business, and both the employer and the employee will benefit," he says.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) adopted its very first convention in 1919, which limited hours of work (8 hours a day, 48 hours a week). According to the ILO convention 171, night working hours cover not less than seven consecutive hours, including the interval from midnight to 5am.

"Long working hours for informal workers are very destructive. Sleep disturbance affects worker performance, stoking risk of occupational accidents and diseases, including digestive and cardiovascular diseases," says Shaukat Ali Chaudhry, a leader of Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF), the single largest national trade union affiliated with 419 unions and a membership of more than 880,000 workers nationwide.

"It is pity that there is no up-to-date data available regarding informal workers’ lengthy working hours, their demography and socioeconomic conditions. Some draft proposals at the cabinet level wait for formal approvals," he adds.

Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, (PIDE) report published in 1998 says that workers in the informal sector work for 60 hours a week compared to 45 hours in the formal sector.

"In the absence of an effective regulatory role of the state, and due to the failure in developing a long-term strategy to harness the labour force potential, we have a huge informal sector existing side by side with the formal economy," says a study conducted by Pervez Tahir, former Chief Economist, Planning Commission of Pakistan in collaboration with by Shirkatgah, WEIGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), and HomeNet Pakistan.

The study says 60 per cent of respondents complained about tough work and long working hours. "About 41per cent work for 9 to 12 hours a day and another 34.3 per cent for up to 8 hours a day with no day off in a week. However, 25 per cent respondents managed to get a day off during the week," the study adds.

Ume Laila Azhar, Executive Director, HomeNet Pakistan, says "After serious efforts, at least the government has incorporated Home-Based Workers (HBWs) as an integral segment of the informal workers in the Labour Policy 2015, a step to enact legislation for this invisible sector to determine working hours and other rights denied to them since long".

ILO’s Home Work Convention, 1996 (No. 177); Saarc’s Kathmandu Recommendations and Declaration of 2000; and the South Asian Regional Plan of Action for Home-Based Workers, 2007, call for the identification and recognition of HBWs.

"So far, Punjab and Sindh have adopted draft proposal to give a legal cover to the rights of HBWs. However, they are yet to be taken up in the respective parliaments. KP and Balochistan are waiting to follow. If the informal sector becomes part of National Labour Policy, injustice regarding working hours and others might be wiped out," she hopes.