LAHORE – Association of Women for Awareness and Motivation (AWAM) organised a three-day training of trainers titled ‘Empowering the activists to defend women workers’ rights’. As many as 35 Muslim and Christian participants including working women and representatives of civil society organizations actively participated in the training held at Dar-ul-Kalam.
The purpose of the training was to equip trainees in order to promote and protect human rights of working class. The facilitators of the training included AWAM Executive Secretary Naseem Anthony, NCJP Executive Secretary Peter Jacob, DCHD Director Tanveer Jahan, WWHL General Secretary Bushra Khaliq, WWO Director Aima Mehmood, Javed Pasha from HomeNet, Muhammad Rafiq from SAHARA, PHD Executive Secretary Suneel Malik, Ali Imran, Saima Williams, Shazia George and Nazia Sardar.
The facilitators said, “Pakistan is amongst those developing countries where a bulk of women work in informal sectors as domestic workers, home based workers and peasant workers. They are exploited by the employers for working in an unregulated, unorganized and undervalued form of employment, because this kind of labour force is not included in the definition of the ‘worker’ in labour legislation.
Such women workers are among the most marginalized groups, because they remain invisible, and are not included in the labour statistics and the labour framework. In the absence of any labour legislative framework, such women workers are not able to claim any rights against their employers for not having any contractual arrangements between the employer and the employee.
In the absence of any written formal contract, their jobs remain insecure as they can be thrown out without any prior notification. There is also no specific complaint procedure available under labour law through which a worker facing abuse could lodge a complaint. They do not enjoy the same rights as the industrial workers, technical workers, sales persons and others in the formal employment sector, who are given protection under the labour laws of the country. The result is that they suffer discrimination in terms of low wages, long working hours and harassment at the workplace.
The participants unanimously passed a resolution and demanded that government should ratify ILO Home Work Convention 177 and should ensure proper implementation of already ratified ILO C-100 for the protection of rights of working women engaged in informal sectors; proper implementation of labour laws must be ensured and more laws must be introduced keeping in view the Labour Policy 2010; home-based workers and domestic workers should be recognized legally as part of the labour force and should be given equal share in trade unions; proper steps should be taken to ensure facilities for labourers such as social security, pension, old age benefits and free medical in all industrial units especially power looms factories and brick kiln.
