Women working in factories have to face male colleagues'
harassment, low income with extra responsibilities but authorities never
admit or honour their abilities in the success of their institutes. There
are no facilities - medical, transport, childcare centres, separate
bathrooms, clean drinking water, job security, job opportunity, common room
or cafeteria in most factories.

The Post conducted a survey that revealed working women - despite of
their designation and departments, had to face myriad problems especially
who are working under-supervision of male bosses. They are working in
factories shoulder to shoulder with men, but their wages are far less than
their male colleagues. The majority of female labour is forced to work 12 to
14 hours a day, but they are seldom paid any overtime charges. Since they
are not permanent employees, they are not entitled to legal benefits. Other
than factory workers, 90 percent housemaids have been subjected to violence
and home-based workers exploited by the middleman. Housemaids are the worst
category of working women as having nobody to speak for them. They have to
bear a double burden for doing household for their livelihood as well as for
their own house. Factory owners do not employ married women. Male colleagues
still resist the integration of female colleagues, and women's own
preference tends to be working silently at home as home-based worker rather
than in factory.

Organization of the women labour in factories is almost impossible.
Even if a trade union exists anywhere, the majority of female workers are
not in the members list. According to research of the Labour Department,
there are only 7,349 registered unions with 293,530 registered members.
288,327 of them are male and only 5,203 are female! Although the government
has adopted the ILO Conventions 100, 111 and 118 on female labour rights but
no serious effort has been made to enforce these rules. Unfortunately, no
reliable data is available on number of women workers and about the
protection and health cover to women at the workplace.

Talking to The Post an NGO, Working Women Helpline (WWH) chairperson
Azra Shad said that women workers facing problems - less payment, long
working hours, sexual and trial environment harassment. She further said
that employers in factories preferred young and beautiful girls than old or
married women to exploit and blackmail them.

While discussing working women's problems chairperson of another NGO,
Working Women Organisation (WWO) Rubina Jamil said that women facing lots of
problems because employees gave them job as they obliged them not as their
right. " 95% working women were facing sexual harassment at their work
places", she said, adding that mostly employers did not give appointment
letters to factory women that made women in continuous tension of job
insecurity. She said that employers gave women limited jobs - reception or
secretarial jobs and did not paid due respect. She said that severe form of
exploitations were gender discrimination, violence at work place - trial
environment, not equal salary to their male colleague for same work, job
insecurity and no workshops for further work improvement due to taboo 'male
is main bread winner of family'.

She added her NGO efforts to aware these ladies for their legal rights
and discussed with private organizations to adopt 'code of conducts' that
was prepared by Alliance Against Sexual Harassment (AASHA- an alliance of
different NGOs).

Factory women workers have drastically deplorable condition as these
women could not talk, meet anybody nor do anything during factory hours.
Interview of few of them were given here, a factory worker Taniya told this
scribe that there is strict scrutiny at their work stations that they don't
dare talk to any one. She said that they did not allow to give any sort of
comments regarding their jobs to outside people. She said they had to work
under worse circumstances for long working hours that are started from 6 a.m
and normally ends at 9 p.m. "We don't get any holidays even have to go to
work on Sundays also. There is no transport, medical allowance," she added.
She worked on a meagre salary of Rs. 3500/ per month for a garment factory.

Sonia is very vocal about the injustices she and her co-workers endure
at their work place. "There is so much discrimination on the bases of
gender. "We have to face sexual harassment at every point. Generally, our
male colleagues misbehave with us and when we lodge complaints against them,
our in-charge turn a blind eye. Once I left the job as a protest but I had
to come back to work after few days because I was in need", she added.

"The sanitary conditions at the factory are in bad shape. Toilets are
dirty and there is always insufficient water for ablution (wazoo). Factory
owners never allowed labour unions and we are literally at the mercy of our
in-charges. While the owners are not aware of our problems as the in-charges
maintain a thick wall between them and the workers. Our employers are very
strict, they deduct our salary if we get late due to traffic strike", she
adds.

Noor Bibi said that she has to change two buses to come to workplace.
There are no sweepers for bathrooms. There is a shortage of drinking water.
There is only one water cooler which is certainly not sufficient for 40
girls in a room", complained Noor while Shazia of 30-year old divorcee with
two kids, she has been working since five years in a factory. Being a single
mother she finds it very difficult to make both ends meet in the meagre
amount of Rs. 5,000/, per month. She is also facing problem regarding her
children as there is no child care centre in her factory.

Shamsa is a graduate and works in day shift as a packaging girl in a
factory. She is also quite displeased with the working conditions. "There is
no union. If anybody raises voice against any injustice, the management
threatens to fire that person from the job", she complains. "I have noticed
that working girls prior to their marriage are confident that their hard
days are over and they will relax at their next house. But in most cases
they ended up continuing their jobs as their lazy husbands wanted them to
earn", she said. She herself is afraid of getting married as she does not
want to be a victim of domestic violence. "These days it's difficult to find
decent guys. They are either into drugs or politics", she declares.

All these women are facing more or less same kinds of problems -
poverty being their biggest enemy. They are compelled to work in
un-favorable circumstances as they have to run their homes. Trade unions are
non-existent and if there are any they function as a mere mouthpiece to the
management. Technological advancements have shrunk time and space and the
world has become a village. The biggest reason for women's exploitation is
the lack of education and awareness about their rights. Above all,
discriminatory laws and negative social attitudes towards women have
rendered them second-class citizens. The problems of the female workforce
demanded special attention of legislative departments of government to take
steps to bound government and private organizations for implementation of
Convention on Elimination Discrimination Against Women.

Article Source: http://www.articleset.com