January 26, 2002	Saturday	Ziqa’ad 11, 1422

KARACHI, Jan 25: Speakers at a workshop here on Friday urged the government to formulate specific laws to check the growing harassment of women at workplace so that they could play their due role in strengthening the nation’s economy.

At the workshop on “Rights of the Working Women,” organized by the Working Women Support Centre (WWSC), they said women comprised a sizable number of the workforce — with nearly 25 per cent of them working full-time and the rest part timers — but there were few laws that dealt with issues particularly relating to women.

They said after independence Pakistan adopted the labour laws of 1934 and, with the passage of time, also kept on modifying these, but no significant attention was paid to recognize the role of women in the country’s development.

They claimed that women’s role in the economy was so great that if they stopped working the economy would collapse as they were working in almost every field be it agriculture, industries, teaching, offices, science and technology. Besides these, the also did domestic chores.

They said even today when the world community was debating on women’s health, protection and safe environment at workplace, but little attention was being paid to their mental and physical health and other matters concerning them here.

The speakers said though there were certain laws that dealt with women’s issues, working women due to low literacy rate and lack of awareness of their rights were unable to benefit from these fully.

They said an overwhelming majority of workers were employed in the unorganized sector and hardly five per cent of the workers were employed in the organized sector, and even out of these 5 per cent only about two per cent were members of trade unions.

They said these figures did not present a healthy working scenario even for men, and the condition of women, being the suppressed section of society, was even worse.

They urged trade union leaders to both enrol women in their organizations and bring them into unions’ decision-making process.

They said, at present, the majority of women did not become members of trade unions, mainly due to family restrictions and social limitations, so union leaders did not raise their voice in support of women when they were victimized.

They informed the audience that the WWSC was providing free legal and psychological assistance to women who were victimized by their organizations at workplaces.

Mohammed Sharif of the Pakistan National Federation of Trade Unions, former representative of the International Labour Organization, Zulekha Zar, Shaukat Ali of the All Pakistan Trade Union Congress, Rabia Beg of the WWSC, Zia Awan, of the Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid, and others also spoke.