close
Tuesday March 19, 2024

Kids join protesting parents after schools turn them out

By Arshad Yousafzai & Zubair Ashraf
November 19, 2018

Holding a dark brown stick that once served as a chair leg, 12-year-old Hasan Shah pointed to an ‘A’ written on a whiteboard. He read the letter aloud and the other children, sitting on a mat under a tent, repeated.

They continued repeating after Hasan as some of them held placards reading “Main paRhna chahta hooN” (I want to study). These are the children of the dock workers who have been protesting outside the Karachi Press Club against being sacked and for their unpaid salaries for 55 days now.

On Sunday the children joined their parents as an expression of solidarity and to inform them that their schools have shut their doors on most of them because their fees have not been paid for the past several months.

Sitting near these children, 42-year-old Fazal Muhammad gazed at his son Arbaz, who is hardly three or four years old. As their eyes met, Arbaz smiled at his father, who in return did the same, but his eyes filled with tears, which he immediately stopped from rolling down, perhaps to be able to tell his son to be strong.

“We could not pay their school fees on time because we have not been paid for the past five months,” said the father. “Instead, the port authorities are forcing us to resign.” “They are threatening to fire us if we don’t, apparently because the port operations have been outsourced to a Chinese company.”

The protesting workers want the implementation of the Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act 1974 to protect theirs and children’s future. “Our demand is simple. We don’t want any confrontation. We have been peaceful since we set up out protest camp. If the port clears our dues and renews our contracts, we will end our protest.”

Hussain Badshah, the general secretary of the Workers Union of Port Qasim (CBA), explained that the outsourcing of the port operations will cost them their jobs and they won’t be able to unionise because private firms usually don’t let their workers to do so.

“We have a right to our jobs. They just can’t throw us out, as we have spent all our lives in this work here. No official from the government or the port who is able to make a decision has bothered to pay us a visit since we started this demonstration back in September.

“Instead, they tell us that if we stop protesting, they might listen and talk to us. This is how they are treating us, as if we’re begging and not demanding our rights. We have no food in our homes. Our children have been expelled from their schools.

“Still, the government is not willing to talk to us. Aren’t we the citizens of this country? Can’t the state lend us an ear? Where should we go? How long should we stay here? We’re not getting any answers.”

Speaking of the children at the camp, union chairman Akhlaq Ahmed Khan said the setting up of the makeshift school is a mitigation step. “We have been suffering the hardest of times. Despite having the skills, we’re not being allowed to work. And the authorities are bent on snatching our livelihoods.”

Khan stressed that the sit-in will continue until Federal Minister for Ports & Shipping Ali Haider Zaidi visits them and ensures them job security. “Though some government representatives visited us to persuade us to end our protest, verbal assurances won’t cut it because we’ve already had enough of them.”

The News asked Zaidi’s office for a comment, but they did not entertain the request.