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Pakistan: Domestic workers should be protected under labour laws

Pakistan: Domestic workers should be protected under labour laws

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by IDWFED published Jun 28, 2014 12:00 AM
The government must protect the rights of millions of domestic workers and ensure that they get decent wages and protection from exploitation at the hands of their employers. Besides, this sector should be regulated and covered with the labour laws and these workers should have an opportunity to organise themselves. These demands were made at a key stakeholders’ meeting on “Taking Forward Organising of Domestic Workers in Punjab” arranged by HomeNet Pakistan at a local hotel on Friday. The event was a component of the Gender Equity Programme (GEP) implemented in collaboration with the Aurat Foundation (AF) and supported by the USAID. The participants of the event gave an overview of the issues faced by domestic workers in the country and ways to bring them in the limelight.

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The government must protect the rights of millions of domestic workers and ensure that they get decent wages and protection from exploitation at the hands of their employers. Besides, this sector should be regulated and covered with the labour laws and these workers should have an opportunity to organise themselves.

These demands were made at a key stakeholders’ meeting on “Taking Forward Organising of Domestic Workers in Punjab” arranged by HomeNet Pakistan at a local hotel on Friday.


Photo: HomeNet Pakistan & The Pleaders Trust

The event was a component of the Gender Equity Programme (GEP) implemented in collaboration with the Aurat Foundation (AF) and supported by the USAID. The participants of the event gave an overview of the issues faced by domestic workers in the country and ways to bring them in the limelight.

There were separate sessions on the initiatives taken so far, sharing of the experiences during the process of organizing domestic workers in Islamabad, analysis of the recommendations on domestic workers’ bill as tabled in the Senate, alliance formation and future strategies for ratification of C189 and possible legislation for domestic workers in Punjab.

Ume Laila Azhar, Executive Director, HomeNet Pakistan, welcomed the audience and said violence against domestic workers had increased manifold in the country for the last few years. She said domestic workers were part of the informal sector of the economy and it was the need of hour that the government should ratify the ILO convention C 189 on domestic workers. It should make laws in line with the convention to protect domestic workers of Pakistan, she added. She was clear that this was not a simple task and that all the stakeholders would have to make concerted efforts to get desired results.

Khalid Mahmood, Executive Director, Labour Education Foundation (LEF), said the registration of domestic workers had started in some parts of the country but unfortunately the objective of this exercise was to increase security and keep a check on these workers. It would have been better if this step had been taken for the betterment of the workers and the task of registration had been assigned to the Labour Department instead of police and NADRA.

He said unfortunately the issues of domestic workers were highlighted only when there was an incident of violence against them. Therefore, there is a need to bring those issues to the fore, which leads to such instances of violence.

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LAHORE: An event was held on Friday by the HomeNet Pakistan as part of the Gender Equity Programme being implemented in collaboration with the Aurat Foundation and supported by USAID.

Ume Laila Azhar, executive director of the HomeNet Pakistan, said violence against domestic workers had increased manifold in the country for the last few years.

She said domestic workers were part of the informal sector of economy and it was the need of the time that the government ratified the ILO convention C 189 on domestic workers. It should make laws in line with the convention to protect domestic workers of Pakistan.

Khalid Mahmood, executive director of the Labour Education Foundation, said the registration of domestic workers had started in some parts of the country but unfortunately the objective of this exercise was to increase their security and keep a check on them.

It would have been better if this step was taken for the betterment of the workers and the task of registration had been assigned to the labour department instead of police and Nadra.

He said unfortunately the issues of domestic workers were highlighted only whenever there was an incident of violence against them.

Read more >>>

The government must protect the rights of millions of domestic workers and ensure that they get decent wages and protection from violence and exploitation at the hands of their employers. They must be covered under the relevant labour laws and given an opportunity to organise themselves.

These were the demands made at a stakeholders’ meeting on Taking Forward Organising of Domestic Workers in Punjab, arranged by HomeNet Pakistan.

The event was a component of the Gender Equity Programme (GEP) implemented in collaboration with Aurat Foundation (AF) and supported by USAID. The participants gave an overview of the issues faced by domestic workers and deliberated on ways to highlight and resolve them.

Separate sessions were organised to discuss the initiatives taken so far for the welfare of domestic workers, and to analyse the recommendations regarding the domestic workers’ bill tabled in the Senate. HomeNet Pakistan Executive Director Ume Laila delivered the welcome address.

She said violence against domestic workers had increased manifold in the country in the last few years. She said domestic workers were part of the informal sector of economy and stressed the need to ratify the International Labour Organisation Convention 189 (on decent work for domestic workers). The government should make laws in line with the convention to protect domestic workers, she added.

“This is not a simple task. All the stakeholders will have to make concerted efforts to get the desired results.”

Read more >>>

Source: The News International

Story Type: News

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