KARACHI, June 8: Speakers at a workshop here on Saturday said working conditions for women doing the job of prawn peeling were very bad and the workers, an overwhelming majority of whom were aliens, did not have any rights.

At the workshop on “Issues being faced by the prawn peeling women,” organized by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in Mazhar-ul-Uloom Secondary School in Khadda, Lyari, they demanded that steps be taken to prevent the exploitation of these workers and to secure their rights.

They said in the past packaging factories usually employed women to peel prawns, but about a couple of decades back, due to influx of aliens, permanent employment had been abolished and factories got their work done through contractors, who employed workers when there was work.

The speakers said women workers — most of whom were Bengalis, Burmese and Afghanis — did not have permanent jobs. They were employed on a day-to-day basis and they had no job security.

They said these workers could not claim old-age benefits like pension, provident fund etc, and were not provided with even medical facilities.

They said working conditions were harsh in the sheds, or the “waray” as these were called in local parlance. As there were no proper sheds, workers were exposed to the sun and they had to continuously handle ice in which prawns were kept. So they were exposed to both heat and cold at the same time.

Since they were not provided with protective hand gloves, their hands were affected because of continuous contact with ice and they also suffered injuries as a result of contact with prawn bones. Since they were not provided medical facilities, the injuries sometimes became septic.

The speakers said there were no toilets for workers. Moreover, they had to wait outside sheds if prawns were not available.

They said a shed where more than 10 workers were employed should be registered under the Factories Act, after which it could be regulated by the labour department and labour laws could be implemented. They said workers were not allowed to form trade union, so their rights were not protected.

They said wages for prawn peeling had not been revised for more than a decade remaining static at around Rs10 a basket containing around 7-8kg prawns. A worker hardly earned around Rs70-80 a day. In this way these skilled workers could not even earn the minimum monthly wages, that had been fixed for unskilled workers.

They said sometimes, when contractors had to supply consignments to their clients, workers had to work long hours — from early morning till late in the night.

The speakers alleged the depressing economic conditions, rampant unemployment and low wages also rendered women workers vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Contractors and supervisors exploited this situation. Workers were also manhandled if they protested against injustices.

The speakers said the prawn catch had also declined due to over-harvesting on the one hand and the destruction of mangroves, which were the nurseries where prawns laid their eggs, on the other.

The chief of the Fisher Folk Forum, Mohammed Ali Shah, Rahim Bakhsh Azad, Bilquis Usmani, Dr Zubaida Kanwal, Saeed Baloch, Ashraf Rizvi, and others also spoke.