Sindh govt urged to expedite registration of home-based workers

After the passing of the landmark Home-Based Workers Bill by the Sindh Assembly 2018, the provincial government and its labour department should expedite the process of the registration of home-based workers and issuing them with labour cards.

This demand was made by the participants of an event organised at a hotel on Tuesday by the Home-Based Women Workers Federation (HBWWF) to hand over a registration card machine and stationery for the registration of home-based workers to the Sindh Labour Department.

Nasir Mansoor, the National Trade Union Federation’s secretary-general, hailed the HBWWF for raising awareness that resulted in the passage of the landmark legislation for protecting the rights of home-based workers in the province

He said the Sindh government of the PPP had always shown positivity where matters of labour rights were concerned, and urged the other provinces to follow suit and initiate legislation for such workers and carry out their registration.

He asked that the pending meeting of the Council under the HBWs Act should be summoned at the earliest. The HBWWF’s Zahra Khan said Sindh was also the first province where rates in the glass bangle industry were notified. She said a meeting of the governing body under the law should be held soon.

She said they had already started the process of registration of home-based workers and some 2,000 registration forms had already been submitted with the Sindh labour department for verification and issuance of labour cards.

Karamat Ali, convener of the National Labour Council, said every year the meeting of the tripartite labour council should be held to review previous decisions and assess implementation of them. “But four years have passed but this meeting is yet to be held,” he said.

Sindh Labour Department Secretary Laeeq Ahmed said that it greatly motivated him to see that stakeholders were playing a great role in getting the issues of labourers resolved. Labour laws consultant Gulfam Nabi Memon said that all stakeholders played a great role in getting the law passed. He said Pakistan was the first country where a separate law for home-based workers had been passed.

The Aurat Foundation’s Mehnaz Rehman said there was a huge contribution of women workers to the passage of the HBWs Act. She said it was the brainchild of PILER and Aurat Foundation and the energetic team of Zahra Khan played a heroic role in getting the law adopted.

The Peoples Labour Bureau’s Habibuddin Junaidi said the registration of HBWs should be accelerated. He said bureaucracy often used delaying tactics, but no such delays should be made in the registration of HBWs.

Civil society activists Qazi Khizr and Saeed Baloch, labour department officials Sibtain Mughal Dr Zahid Gulzar and others also attended the event.