“The state shall ensure the elimination of all forms of exploitation and the gradual fulfillment of the fundamental principle, from each according to his ability, to each according to his work.” So says Article 3 of the Pakistan Constitution.

Every May 1st, International Workers’ Day, government functionaries trot out platitudes more or less affirming this principle. And every year, the levels of exploitation and poverty increase in the country. During the last 15 years, poverty levels have increased from 20 to 33 per cent, according to the State Bank of Pakistan’s annual report of November 2003.

The proportion of people living below the poverty line in 2003, meanwhile, expanded to 38.1 per cent, as compared to 30 per cent the previous year, according to another report released by the Centre for Research in Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution and UNDP, in December 2003.

While quoting these figures, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) annual report 2003 notes that according to unofficial sources, over 36 per cent of Pakistan’s 149 million people live below the poverty line. “Translated from the language of statistics, this mean that they lacked enough food to sustain themselves, had almost no access to education or healthcare and were in many cases deprived of basic amenities such as clean water.”

Downsizing continues to force people out of jobs -- the most recent such measure being announced by none other than the Armed Forces of Pakistan, which is “trimming” its “tail” by kicking out 50,000 men. The move begs answers to questions like, where will these 50,000 men go, how they will support their families now, and how much the Army will actually save from the wages of low-paid soldiers while retaining a plethora of
high-ranking, well-paid officers. As these laid-off soldiers join the ranks of Pakistan’s unemployed – 3.34 million of the labour force, according to official figures quoted in the HRCP report – there are all sorts of curbs against those fortunate enough to have jobs, restricting them from strikes and other actions to protest wages or working conditions.
With no minimum wages being enforced, employers are free to hire workers on a contract basis, at pitiable amounts.

Sughra, 24, has studied till class 9, but never expected to have to go out to work – but the death of her father a few years ago forced her to become the first girl in her family to do so, to support her four sisters and ailing mother; her youngest sibling and only brother passed away in childhood.

This is her second year at a garments factory in Karachi’s Korangi Industrial area, where she works a punishing six day-week, ten hours a day, schedule on her feet cutting garments before they are sent on to the stitching section. “In the beginning it was very difficult, very tiring,” she confesses. “My feet would get swollen, and I’d sometimes develop a fever. But now I’m used to it.”

She leaves the house at 7.00 am in her black burqa, walking to the bus stop a mile or so away, in order to clock in at the factory at 8.00 am. At least twice or thrice a week, she is asked to put in a couple of hours overtime. Despite her exhaustion, she agrees, because it means earning an extra Rs 15 per hour. There are no medical facilities but she gets an annual bonus (one-month’s salary), and a salary increase of Rs 300 yearly. Her monthly salary: a mere Rs 2,750, of which Rs 300 are spent on the daily bus fare. (USD 1 = Rs 58)

It is not just the working hours and the pitiable wage that she finds difficult, it’s the entire male-dominated atmosphere. In this situation, she has been lucky to find a mentor, a senior employee who adopts her as his ‘sister’. This kind of protection is a form of solace to her, and the thought of it, a comfort to her mother and younger sisters.

Sughra agrees that her family’s economic condition would undoubtedly improve if her younger sisters also went out to work like her. Two have studied up to the 8th or 9th levels, while the youngest, who attends college and gives tuitions to neighbourhood children to pay her fees, is the hope of the family.

But Sughra will do everything in her power to keep her sisters at home “with honour” and not expose them to the “mahaul” outside. “It’s basically how you conduct yourself that matters,” she says. “But the way people are, they judge all girls by the actions of a few…” And she would rather that her sisters remain sheltered from such exposure.

It’s not that the sisters don’t do anything at home. But what they earn from stitching clothes for neighbours – Rs 60 per ‘jora’ – or preparing clips for a home-based factory nearby, doesn’t take the family very far. Inking and cleaning the clips is slow, and tedious work, which they sit down to do when free from household chores. At the rate of four rupees per 150 to 200 clips, it means doing about 3000 clips in order to make about 60 rupees a day.

That they, and others like them, “manage to get by,” as Sughra says, without losing their dignity and self-respect, says more for their own courage and grit than for the government’s vision and policies.