LAHORE: A Working Women’s Forum was launched on Monday where lady health workers, brick kiln women workers, home-based workers (HBWs), domestic workers and factory workers would be united.

Speakers at the launch said the forum would work independently without relying on any non-government body.

HomeNet Pakistan’s Umme Laila said they wanted women workers to become more organised at district level. She said women should be given more say in urban plans and policies along with the fact that women’s issues needed to be addressed more. She said the platform would also help women approach politicians, law makers and others easily. Women from different sectors would interact with each other at the forum to understand mutual problems and try to solve them.

“Of the 60 million labour force, women workers have similar issues,” she said. “Twenty eight percent of these workers fall in the formal sector and 72 per cent in the informal sector, of which women are more in number.”

She said for 48,000 units in Punjab, there were only 180 inspectors to check labour laws’ violations, adding that most of the women workers did not have the awareness needed for their work. They work in hazardous and dangerous conditions; sometimes they are abused both physically and sexually by employers or others in position of authority.

She said a survey in Lahore showed 55 per cent of women did not know that labour laws existed and 56 percent of women did not have the access or the decision making authority in spending the money that they earned. Sixty two percent of the women did not know about labour department’s complaint mechanism and 48 per cent were on contract while 21 percent did not even know what kind of job they had.

Sidra Rehan, HBWs project manager of the UN Women, said the government had yet to implement international laws such as the ILO’s C-177 which had already been ratified.

Labour Education Foundation’s Prof Jalwat Ali said they had managed HBW unions which helped women to be aware of their rights. The HBW Federation had been formed for this reason.

Women Worker Union leader Shaheena Kausar said instead of forming women wings, women must be inducted into mainstream trade unions. She said taking employers alongside would help achieve the goal faster.

Aima Mehmood of the Working Women’s Organisation said that industrial working women still suffered from the same predicaments. She also suggested women in the agriculture sector must be included in the forum as they too were some of the most sidelined lot.

She said sometime men did not want women to be office bearers in trade unions.

Ghulam Fatima from the Brick-Kiln Labour Liberation Federation highlighted kiln workers’ issues like bonded labour and wages.

PML-N MPA Lubna Faisal said she had introduced a resolution in parliament that there must be a female labour inspector at workplaces for women workers’ safety.

MPAs Saadia Sohail and Nosheen Hamid also spoke.

Published in Dawn January 27th, 2015

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