KARACHI, Nov 15: Speakers at a seminar on Thursday demanded that the bombing on Afghanistan be stopped immediately as it was having adverse effects on Pakistani society including its economy.

Speaking at the seminar on “Effects of Afghan War on Workers” organised by the a monthly magazine Badaltee Dunya at the PMA House, they said that a large number of workers had been sacked as many export orders had been cancelled due to the Afghan situation.

They said that the cancellation of export orders had lowered the local purchases by the exporters and the local industry was also affected and a large number of workers had been sacked.

They said that the recent decision of the Sindh government directing the labour department officials not to carry out inspections had also given a free hand to the employers who had started to sack the workers.

They said that the government policy to lower the import duties had made foreign goods cheaper than the locally manufactured goods and many a local industries had not only lowered the salaries but also sacked their workers also to lower their costs.

They demanded that the government should pay a substantial percentage of foreign aid totalling billions of dollars be given to the workers who had been sacked due to the Afghan crisis.

They criticised the loan-taking policies of the government and said that in the past the loans had been taken to improve the economy, but the economy had not improved and only the amount of loan had increased. Now the country was faced with difficulties to even pay back the mark up and loan instalment.

They regretted that the trade union movement had deteriorated over the years and presently it was no in a position to resist the anti-labour policies of the industrialists and the government.

They urged the scholars, poets and educated people to come forward and provide guidance to the workers so that rights of the poor could be secured.

Maula Bakhsh Khaskheli, Manzoor ahmad Razi, Mukhtar qureshi, Irfan shaikh, Bacha gul, Khalid Alig, Abdul Sattar, Sagheer Shah, Aslam Khan, Mohammad Yamin, Hidayat Hussain, Riaz Siddiqui and others spoke on the occasion.