05/11/2014
Parveen has spent nearly a decade stitching footballs in Roras village, Sialkot at only Rs. 75 per day.
The
football industry, which does a yearly business of nearly 30 million,
is being run by thousands of home based workers, primarily women.
The
shockingly low wage scale is not limited to the football industry
alone; women labourers have faced a setback in terms of both salary and
employment opportunities in other industries as well.
Muneera Bibi
has been working in Kahuta-Rawalpindi as a hawker, by selling utensils
in villages or bartering them in exchange for raw materials such as
rubber and metallic goods that can be recycled.
“I make Rs. 200 a
day and at times nothing at all. When my items don't sell I often take
off the basket from my head with only one thought; how will I feed my
children?”
Tahir Manzoor, Gender Focal Person and Deputy Director Labour,
Department of Labour, Punjab, said that female 'Home-Based Workers' are
not recognised in the labour laws, because of this no regulations and
benefits apply to them.
“Their work is not organised and they
don’t have any union to present their issue at the government level,”
said Manzoor adding that, “Female vendors have no wage standard. The
social welfare department needs to support them financially. They don’t
get any assistance in case of sexual harassment either.”
Hurmat
Bibi has spent her entire life as a labourer, but her experiences in the
past were comparatively better than the working conditions now.
“In
the past, it was much better; there was warmth, affection and sympathy
in the society.” She expressed contentment and satisfaction during her
time vending and said, "Now, to venture out for earning one’s livelihood
is becoming difficult for our young vending women. They get abused,
pestered and frequently manhandled and sadly this has become an attitude
of the general public too.”
Apart from the attitude of the employees and society, women are often forced to work by their unemployed husbands.
Zahida, 45, is a brick kiln labourer who works with a group of eight
women and girls. Her husband, a drug addict, would often beat her. She
asked him for a divorce and found employment in a brick kiln factory in
Kasur and has been doing it for the last six years.
“My employer
gives me Rs. 100 per day but he sometimes doesn't pay me at all. He
provides food and shelter but there is no fixed pay,” said Zahida.
In major cities, there are colonies of slums and shanty towns that
co-exist at the peripheries of affluent neighborhoods with their posh
concrete houses presenting a stark image of class divide.
United
Nations Development Programme estimates that nearly 35 per cent of the
urban population in Pakistan exists in slums, and squatter settlements.
The
living conditions in these squatter settlements speak appalling stories
of deprivation, which do not conform to the most basic requirements for
a healthy human existence.
According to United Nations Agency
for Human Settlement (UN-HABITAT), the global slum population may grow
to two billion by 2030 with increasing livelihood and labour issues,
particularly for women.
The World Bank and UN-HABITAT have
estimated that over 80 per cent of the new jobs in urban parts of the
developing countries will likely be low-paying jobs in the informal and
unorganized sectors given that no significant economic reforms are
taken. If all factors remain same, a high growth in the informal sector
will be accompanied by a rapid growth of slums.
In the absence of
skills and little to no education, unemployment rates will continue to
rise for slum dwellers, and particularly for the women.
The close proximity to factories and industrial waste put slum
dwellers in danger of developing respiratory diseases such as whooping
and chronic cough. The treatment that is opted is usually
self-medication with no consultation from doctors.
Nutritional deficiencies are also common which contribute to the high infant mortality rate.
Muneera
Bibi, who is also a brick kin labourer spoke about her sick child, "My
five-year-old son was malnourished since childhood, he now has polio. I
can’t give him all of my time because of my work; I can neither earn
money for his treatment or be on his side."
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