HYDERABAD: The Home-Based Women Bangle Workers Union held a demonstration outside the local press club here on Saturday to press the government for acceptance of their demands.

They carried banners and chanted slogans in favour of their demands.

Leading the protest, Home-Based Women Workers Federation general secretary Zehra Khan and union’s Hyderabad chapter general secretary Jamila Abdul Latif appealed to the government to increase wages of workers, register them with the social security department, provide facilities of health and education to their children, remove hurdles in the issuance of computerised national identity cards (CNICs) of women workers, ensure proper supply of power, water and gas to their localities and revamp the sewerage.

Know more: ‘95pc of home-based women workers without legal protection’

They said that around 600,000 women workers of the glass bangles industry were suffering from diseases including cancer, blindness, TB, rheumatism and skin problems because of poisonous chemical used in bangle-making. They said thumb impressions of a number of workers had disappeared due to the chemical and they were facing problems to get their CNICs.

They appealed to the government to raise their wages and save their families from starvation. They said glass bangles home-based industry produced profit of millions of rupees annually, but their workers were deprived of basic facilities and they were eking out a miserable existence owing to financial problems.

Published in Dawn, Aug 10th, 2014