Sindh govt asked to notify rules, procedures to implement home-based workers' law.

Byline: Shazia Hasan

KARACHI -- 'I work all day, ironing buckram for shirt collars. I am given the work by garment factories but I don't work at any factory. I work from home. For 100 ironed buckram collars I get paid Rs20 only. It doesn't cover my electricity bills,' Rukhsana Shafiq, a home-based worker, told Dawn on the occasion of International Day of Home-based Workers on Monday.

A rally of home-based workers, organised by the Home-Based Women Workers Federation (HBWWF), was also taken out with a majority of women workers holding up red flags and placards asking for their rights as they walked under the hot sun from Fawwara Chowk in Saddar to the Karachi Press Club.

Shazia Yaqoob, another home-based worker, said that she did Baloch embroidery at home.

'It is intricate work and doing embroidery work on one shirt, shalwar and dupatta takes me about two months. I get paid Rs300 per suit,' she said. 'This is all the work I know and I work hard doing it but feel I am not getting what I really deserve.'

The rallying workers demanded that the Sindh government issue early notification of rules and procedures of the Sindh Home-Based Workers Act so that the law could be practically implemented.

Scores of workers take out a rally to mark International Day of Home-based Workers

Zehra Khan, HBWWF's central general secretary, said that her NGO had been fighting for the rights of workers including peasant women, lady health workers, teachers and nurses for three decades now.

'It was after a long and untiring struggle that home-based workers in Pakistan, especially in Sindh, have gotten accepted their legal status in the form of the passing of the Home-based Workers Act, which is a historic milestone not just for the home-based workers of this country but also for this region,' she said.

Saira Feroze, the general secretary of United Home-Based Garments Workers' Union, said that even though they were grateful to the Sindh Assembly for passing of the Home-based Workers Act, it was sad to find that the rules of the act had not been formulated and there had been no implementation of the law even after the...

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