Labouring poor in the informal sector of Pakistan and other South Asian countries are living under worst condition and there is no remedy and social security is being provided nor any relief is ever given to them. The issues related to labouring poor were highlighted in a seminar, organised jointly by South Asia Partnership-Pakistan and Pakistan Institute for Labour Research (Piler). The theme of the seminar was "Labouring poor in South Asia: Challenges of expanding in formalisation".
German Sociologist Professor Jan Breman was the chief guest on this occasion. He is a well known figure as he is working on labouring poor's plight and related issues as a researcher in India for half a century and was on a good will visit of Pakistan. While giving a keynote address on "Labouring poor in Pakistan and poverty," Professor Breman raised his deep concerns over the pathetic plight and poor situation of starving labouring poor of South Asian countries.
He said there was a very close relationship amongst the poverty and poor labouring class, adding that in Pakistan the labouring class was totally powerless. "The labour class work day and night in Pakistan but in spite of that they always remain poor because they are not considered or acknowledged by the state government and the politicians or political parties and are never on their political agenda," he said.
With reference to his research, Professor Breman elaborated "the labouring poor are also denied by the government because there is no fair counting of labourers and their poor working condition during national census and according to governmental facts and figures in 2008 there are only 17.2 percent labouring poor in India. This figure was decreased after wards, which shows the state and government negligence towards them and no body care about their plight, how they are surviving and suffering? I am very much surprised to know about the Pakistani labouring poor that they are also being neglected and a rejected class in spite of that they have a very deep connection with the economic and social crises in Pakistan."
While highlighting the implications of the social sector in India, he said there were 4.8 millions of labouring poor and among them 93 percent were working with informal sector and half of them were in the formal sector apparently, but they were not being given their legal rights as workers. Breman said Indian government had set up a commission for the informal sector workers to collect the facts and figures of the labouring poor. "In 2004-5, Commission submitted a report. Its main findings were that 77 percent population was living on Rs 20 per day and Commission recommended to adopt a strategy to exit these workers from informal sector and bring them in main stream labour force, but the process is still in pipeline."
He said "in the context of globalisation, informal sector is not an issue but a solution to that, because capitalism is the root cause of unemployment and the labouring poor are blamed to shirk work, are irresponsible and unorganised and are the culprits." Professor Breman told that labouring poor go from one to another place in search of labour and get very cheep labour in towns, toiling hard to earn their bread.
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