PESHAWAR: Speakers at a seminar have urged government to implement all the existing laws preventing harassment and focus on legislation to provide protection to women both at workplaces and homes.

The seminar was organized by Da Hawa Loor, a civil society organisation, at Peshawar Press Club on Monday. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Deputy Speaker Dr Mehr Taj Roghani was chief guest on the occasion Labour Department Director Irfan Khan, Da Hawa Loor CEO Khurshid Bano, Maliha Hussain, Shawana Shah, Awami Workers Party representative Ismat Shahjahan and TransAction Association president Farna Jan addressed the seminar.

Khurshid Bano said that there were at least 20 million home-based workers in the country and 73 per cent of them were women. She said that those workers contributed to national economy but they were deprived of their basic rights.

Speakers seek strict enforcement of existing laws to stop harassment

She urged government to adopt legislative and policy reforms for development of home-based workers at national and provincial level. She also demanded development schemes for women in addition to equal share in the national and provincial budgets for workers. She said that home-based workers should be recognised as labourers.

Ismat Shahjahan said that after passage of 18th Amendment, provinces were independent in making legislation, releasing and increasing wages of workers but Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government failed to pay salaries to employees of Workers Welfare Board during the past many months.

Maliha Hussain, chief of NGO Mehergarh, said that laws were passed for women protection but those were yet to be implemented in real sense. She said that parents avoided sending their daughters to workplaces for fear of harassment.

She said that government should focus on legislation and implementation as well to ensure protection to women both at workplaces and homes. She urged collective steps to discourage harassers.

Irfan Khan claimed on the occasion that government focused on institutional reforms process to check gender-based discrimination. He said that for the first time, five women labour officers were hired to check industrial workers in different parts of the province.

Dr Mehr Taj Roghani counted a number of laws adopted by the provincial government to protect women workers. She said that salaries of Workers Welfare Board employees could not be released owing to probe into illegal appointments during the previous government. Dr Roghani also sought proposals from the participants to improve working conditions for women.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2017