KARACHI: “I stitch clothes all day with other family members who are at home with me in order to be able to earn Rs4,000 to Rs5,000 a month. Around Eid time, we may do better and make around Rs7,000 maybe,” said Saira Feroze, a home-based worker protesting outside the Karachi Press Club here on Thursday on the occasion of the South Asian Home-based Workers’ Day.

“We need job security, medical allowance, money to send our children to school. We live in rented quarters and sometimes it becomes difficult to even pay our rents,” said Shamim Bano, another home-based worker, who said she did a variety of things from making candles to stitching caps.

Zahida Ahmed, another one in the group holding banners and waving red flags, said working long hours for the measly income had weakened the eyesight of many home-based workers. “We work even in the dark, when there is no electricity because we can’t afford to rest. We get no respite,” she said.

The demonstration was arranged by the Home-based Women Workers Federation. The women had gathered to protest for not being recognised as a part of the labour force, and hence not being given their legal rights.

In Pakistan, more than 12 million home-based workers, of whom 80 per cent are women, do not have any legal identity because their status is yet to be defined in the local labour laws. The government is yet to announce a formal home-based policy to give legal cover and protection to them.

Other speakers on the occasion said that millions of workers here had been awaiting the signature of the competent authority on the home-based policy for three years now.

They said that once the policy was signed and announced, home-based workers would get the legal status and identity as per the labour laws of this country, which would also allow them to enjoy the benefits and perks under these laws. They demanded that the policy be announced without further delay so that they could be registered with social security institutions.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2016