Come July and rice cultivation reaches its crescendo. In the outskirts of Lahore, lining the Narowal-Muridke highway on either sides, you can’t miss the (mostly) flooded paddy fields topped by hazel-green straws and leaves that flail gently in the air and, depending on the time of the day, a gaggle of village women, armed with hoes and spades, hard at work. Some of the women labourers have brought their little ones along, so that they can be kept under watch. It’s a routine with them around this time of the year.

Paddy, in most countries of the world, is worked by family labour. The sad part is that for all the sweat and blood that they put into their work, the labourers are often highly undercompensated.