ISLAMABAD: The home-based women workers have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 and crisis-induced shocks due to job losses, wage cuts and extra burden of family care who need special social security schemes.
This was the crux of a webinar titled ‘Pakistan Development Policy Series 2021 Working within Confines: Women Home-Based Workers – IWD2021’ organized by the World Bank.
The webinar engaged local and international experts regarding Pakistan’s informal sector, particularly issues faced by women home based workers. The discussion centered around exploring how critical support can be provided to these women workers, especially pertaining to policy reform and implementation of laws to underpin their significant contribution to the country’s economic growth.
The participants stated that there is need to be amendment in social security and special schemes for covering home based female workers needs to be launched. Without appropriate questions and classifications in surveys, home-based women workers are often listed among unpaid domestic work, they added.
Najy Benhassine, the World Bank country director for Pakistan said productive women work force in Pakistan is very important but they are not counted in the female labour participation rate Pakistan has currently 20.1 percent. There are many constraints for the women labor in the country and the World Bank is committed to support the government of Pakistan to increase ratio of women participation as work labour force to 40-45 percent by 2025 through different projects, registration and legal assistance.
He said a lot of women labour workforce working from home in Pakistan is not registered and this topic with respect to women rights is very important.
Home-based women workers contribute greatly to Pakistan’s economic growth despite being part of the informal sector, he added.
Pakistan manufactures around 80 percent of the world’s footballs and earns nearly $50 million in foreign exchange from this industry alone – largely produced by home-based workers.
Estimates show there are over 12 million home-based women workers in Pakistan. Around 8.9 million estimated in Punjab alone, the participants added.
In Pakistan, 70.7 percent of women in the workforce are represented in the informal sector. Most of these informal working women are home-based.
Home-based women workers contribute greatly to Pakistan’s economic growth despite being part of the informal sector.
The panelists included Ume-Laila Azhar, executive director of Homenet Pakistan; Marty Chen, senior advisor for women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO); Sergei Soares, labor economist, International Labour Organization; Maria Beatriz Orlando, lead social specialist, World Bank; and Haseena Ali, micro-business owner and home-based worker.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021