The Women’s Development Department is collaborating with the International Labour Organisation and the All Pakistan Women’s Association in a Rs20 million project to train 1,000 women in Lahore as domestic workers and place them in jobs, The Express Tribune has learnt. The project is to be launched on December 15.
Durr-e-Shahwar, a project manager at APWA, said that the association’s premises would be refurbished to make it a training facility and four staff members would be trained as “co-facilitators” who could in future conduct similar training sessions as part of the project. The trained workers would be registered with placement service providers to find them jobs.
The project will also explore legislation to set a minimum wage for domestic workers, and to mandate written contracts between employees and employers specifying worker responsibilities, work hours, time of wage payment, benefits and notice periods, Shahwar said.
These are common issues that domestic workers face, she added.
An assessment by the ILO in 2013 and other studies show that domestic workers make up a substantial part of the informal economy, which makes up 73 per cent of Pakistan’s total economy, said Shahwar. “This means that a major portion of Pakistan’s labour force is operating without any formal legislative framework for the protection of their rights,” she said.
The research shows that most domestic helpers belong to very poor families or female-headed households, she said. Many are separated, divorced, widowed or married to drug addicts. They are migrants with large families who are illiterate or semi-literate and have little or no access to knowledge or employment opportunities. They are also usually unable to negotiate with their employers to protest their rights, she said.
Most domestic workers tend to keep moving from one household to another, she said. They lack information about their responsibilities and rights and are vulnerable to various forms of exploitation and violence. Though they have been cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, taking care of children, and so on, for a number of years, they are not formally recognised as having those skills, she said. This limited recognition of their competencies, she said.
Skills development programme
APWA Chairwoman Ruhi Sayid said that the programme aimed at training women as certified domestic workers with enhanced capacities to manage multiple household tasks, to establish a databank of trainees and link them to placement service providers, to initiate a legislative framework for domestic workers, and advocate for the ratification of the ILO Convention on domestic workers.
She said that they expected at least 90 per cent of graduates from the scheme to secure jobs which would Increase their income levels by 30-50 per cent.
She said “soft skills” would be a key part of the training. These include occupational health and safety, personal hygiene and grooming, time management, protection against various types of harassment, communication and negotiation skills, and awareness of their rights and responsibilities.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 29th, 2013.