DAWN.COM | World | Hard road for Pakistan's women workers
Godh, a human rights organisation working for the welfare of these workers, estimates there are two million road labourers in Pakistan, including around 900,000 women and thousands of minors. -AFP Photo
Aged 29, she is a widow and a mother of four. She is five months pregnant with her fifth child yet road construction in the parched countryside near the Indian border is the only way she can feed her children.
Pakistan may be one of the world's most deeply patriarchal societies with some of the worst indicators of women's health, no domestic violence law and endemic sexism but women make up a significant segment of road labour.
Bibi's second husband and father of her unborn child refuses to pay to feed her other children so she toils in the heat to build the road from Wazirabad to Daska 193 kilometres (120 miles) southeast of Islamabad.
“I'm not thinking about my baby, who is yet to come in this world. He will face the same miseries I have been facing all my life,” said Bibi.
Pakistani women who crush stones, lay them under heavy rollers and surface roads by spreading bitumen are a major source of cheap road labour in Punjab and Sindh, Pakistan's two most developed provinces.
They have worked in road construction for generations. Many have known no other lifee – born alongside the road, growing up beside the road and working as soon as they can, moving road to road like gypsies their whole life.
Lying down, taking a rest from the pail of stones and heavy hammer, Bibi said she would give birth in the dirt. “We give birth along the road, marry along the road and die along the road. This is our life and we don't know anything else except stone crushing.”
Godh, a human rights organisation working for the welfare of these workers, estimates there are two million road labourers in Pakistan, including around 900,000 women and thousands of minors.
The government pays no attention and their parents do nothing to train their children for other work, says Nazir Ghazi, executive director of the group.
“The condition of the women and children is pathetic. All these women work despite being ill, even until the last day of their pregnancy.
“The babies get weak and bad skin due to poor growing conditions and children have no facility to study,” he said.
Ameer Mai, has been in the business since childhood. She's now 45.
She started crushing stones to support her parents. She continued to help her husband and support her children. Now she needs $240 to treat her two-year-old for kidney stones.
Ameer and her husband get Rs 250 (three dollars) a day; their 10-year-old daughter Mussarrat Rs 150. Two younger daughters work without a fixed wage for just a few rupees in tips.
“We buy a bag of flour, vegetables and can't afford meat. We don't know any other job to do and have to do it till our death,” she said.
Tears filled Ameer's eyes as she narrated her story, holding her son Shahid in one hand and a bucket in the other. As she spoke, bitumen melted in a hot smoky oven and a roller pressed the stones.
Unable to break the cycle of misery, she is passing down her life to her daughter. While other girls traipse to school with books, Mussarrat lifts a bucket onto her head full of stones in Punjab's Zafarwal area of Sialkot.
“I tell my mother I want to go to school and can't work but she always says if you don't work, you won't have anything to eat',” Mussarrat told AFP, her face flushed in the burning sun and her hair muddied.
The dust, heat, din of the heavy roller and the burden of work exhaust her.
“Sometimes I simply leave and lie down,” she said.
Shawaiz Warraich, manager of the company building the Wazirabad-Daska road, denied any responsibility for women and child labourers.
“We sublet the stone crushing and surface preparing works to contractors who hire them. We have no direct concern with them and only want our work done.”He said sub-contractors are mostly husbands, fathers, brothers and cousins of the women, who force them to work according to tribal customs.
Campaigners would like to see the government enforce compulsory education for children under the age of 16 and provide free healthcare. At the moment, children over the age of 14 are legally entitled to work.
“These women are ignored by the departments that should help them. The government doesn't address civic problems and civil society is very weak,” said Farzana Bari, a founding member of aid group Pattan.
“These women should also rise up and form their own union to get equal salaries to men because they work equally. Sometimes their salaries are even paid to their male relatives.” –AFP
What say now??
this pic is recent which mean after so many talk abt ****** place u still dnt care.wake up now atleast.
unlike your concrete one .
