The Sindh Labour department has started registration of home-based workers under the Sindh Home-Based Workers Act 2018. Reejumal Sajanani, the labour director, passed the information to this effect at a recent provincial working group meeting organised by the HomeNet Pakistan. He said that with the support of the United Nations Women, the registration of home-based workers had stared on May 25 in Hyderabad, and June 1 in Sukkur. He called it a landmark development. “After the verification of the HBWs [home-based workers] by the labour inspector, the form will be sent to Provincial headquarters for data entry and issuance of card. The Sindh government is committed to implement the law phase wise in the province,” he explained.
The event was also told that Pakistan had become the first country in South Asia for enacting four laws for the home-based workers. Kapil Dev, provincial coordinator of the UN Women, talked about challenges in the registration process. The UN Women was supporting the Sindh government for the registration of home-based workers, he said. A representative of the Sindh Employees Social Security Institution (Sessi) said that after their registration, home-based workers would be covered by social security schemes offered by Sessi.