KARACHI: Home-based workers have demanded that the government recognise them as labourers and provide them with social security in accordance with the labour laws. While speaking at a press conference on Sunday, the Home-based Women Workers Federation General Secretary Zehra Khan said that it was high time to focus on the issues of home-based workers in Pakistan. She added that more than 12 million home-based workers were deprived of their fundamental rights in Pakistan. She claimed that due to globalization of imperialism in the world, wages and privileges of workers were witnessing a continuing decrease. The legal right of forming unions, she claimed, is being snatched from workers.
Khan demanded that the federal and provincial governments should protect their rights by introducing new labour laws.
"In view of the changing conditions, there should be a new definition of workers which includes workers do not just work at factories or industries," she said. "This will include home-based workers too."
Saira Ferzoe, the general secretary of the United Garment Home-based Workers Union, Zahida Mukhtar, Raqiqa Hanif, Shabnam Usman, Jamila M Hanif, Nasir Mansoor, the deputy general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation and Central Leader of the Workers Rights Movement, Gul Rehman, were also present at the press conference.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 20th, 2014.
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