blog 9: Home-based female workers await recognition of their rights

                    

Despite their extensive contributions to the economy, home based working women of Pakistan are still waiting to be recognized for their rights. According to various estimates, there are over 20 million women workers in Pakistan. They work in sectors of garment and bangle-making, shoe-stitching, embroidery, carpet weaving, dry fruit peeling, jewelry, leather products, stitching of mobile phone covers, prawn shelling etc. The working hours of these women range from 12 to 16 whereas their daily income in return of their hard work is around a mere Rs10 to R50. Research shows that the long working hours, poor working conditions, and family pressure that arise from the previous sectors badly affect their health. . Realizing the need to protect women workers in the informal sector, the government, along with the support from women’s organizations drafted the Home Based Women Workers Social Protection Bill in 2006. It which was later presented in the National Assembly in 2007. Unfortunately, despite it being revised several time, it was never presented in the Parliament again. The bill had entailed setting up a Social Protection Commission that would register home based women workers in groups of 5 through, or independently, of employers.  Through the commission, all registered Home Based Women Workers would be entitled to receive protection benefits such as sickness benefits, maternity benefits, death grants, medical care during sickness and maternity, injury benefits, disablement pension, survivor’s pension, family benefits and employment injury benefits. The benefits are much needed since their work is characterized by unregulated, low skilled, low paid and high hazardous conditions. The women really have nothing to fall back on in times of unemployment, sickness, accidents and child birth. “We demand that the home based worker’s issue should to be seen within a human rights and legislative framework,” said Aqsa, a member of one of the women’s organizations.

The home worker’s in Pakistan have no social and legal recognition for their work. They work double the hours American and European women work, yet barely have enough to meet basic survival needs. They are living in a vivacious cycle of debt and deprivation that could be triggered at any moment by the slightest circumstances, such as marriages, deaths, and of course, old age. It is a must that the National Assembly pass the Home Based Workers Social Protection Bill. The bill will not only benefit women in Pakistan, but oppressed individuals worldwide. Women already have the backbreaking profession of being the caregivers of the household, but working 15 hours shifts on top of that with no recognition for their labor is unacceptable.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-138452-Home-based-female-workers-await-recogni