Author: Zeenat Hisam

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Natural Gas Infrastructure and Local Communities in Sindh: A Case of Three Settlements in Sanghar District (2022)

Written by Zeenat Hisam and Ishak Soomro, this 2022 research report was produced by The Knowledge Forum as a part of its programme to promote a narrative on scaling back fossil fuels in Pakistan, with the support of Tara, a regionally-led grant-making initiative to accelerate energy transformation in Asia.

Pakistan is a resource-rich country and the energy sector — driven on the back of fossil-fuel based solutions – has played a major role in fuelling economic growth and development. Extraction of oil and gas requires huge capital, sophisticated technology and highly skilled labour. The first beneficiaries of the extraction are thus the investors, the operating companies and the management (national or global corporations). The larger beneficiaries are the industries and the households, mainly located in urban and industrial areas across the country. Local population living in hydrocarbons-producing regions in Pakistan do not benefit from natural resources lying under their feet and being extracted by outsiders which include provincial and federal governments.

Local economy and local living conditions at many production sites have remained stagnant for decades. The population living in districts with high endowment of natural resources suffer multiple socio-economic deprivations, particularly in the areas of education, health, and employment.

While the dominant narrative in the energy sector, particularly in oil and gas development, is built around probing of technical aspects, scrutiny and analyses of energy production and its benefits, very little documentation in Pakistan captures the experiences of the local communities vis a vis oil and gas industry. Many resource- rich countries make efforts to improve the local economy by leveraging linkages to production projects. The value brought to the local, regional or national economy from an extraction project is referred to as the “local content”. This snapshot study attempts to touch upon the lack of local content in the context of three settlements in the area close to gas fields in Sanghar District Sindh.

View and download the full report here:

Natural Gas Infrastructure and Local Communities in Sindh: A Case of Three Settlements in Sanghar District

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Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan: The Year 2016

This research report was written for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in 2017. 

The PILER 2016 Report on the Status of Labour Rights, sixth in the series, based on secondary research, aims to present an overview of the status of labour and the issues in the year impacting labour directly or indirectly.

Click on the link below to view the complete report:

Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan: The Year 2016

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Labour Standards in Pakistan’s Surgical Instruments Sector: A Synthesis Report (2019)

This report is a component of a multi-stakeholder programme led by the Ethical Trading Initiative in partnership with the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) started in 2018.

Pakistan is a major exporter of high-quality surgical instruments, produced in the Sialkot region, that are used in public and private health authorities
in Europe and the USA. Over the past decade a number of in-depth studies have highlighted instances of severe labour exploitation and child labour within the industry. There have been some improvements in compliance with international labour standards from exporting factories in Sialkot. However, there is little visibility or oversight of the lower tiers of the supply chain where exploitation is known to be prevalent.

This report builds on existing knowledge of the sector and its challenges. It set out to understand the root causes of poor labour standards and to identify the actual and potential roles and responsibilities of all of the key stakeholders in the global value chain. The aim was to identify recommendations that could deliver long- term solutions to these complex, endemic problems.

Click here to view and download the full report:

Labour Standards in Pakistan’s Surgical Instruments Sector:
a Synthesis Report

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Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan: The Year 2015

This research report was written for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in 2015. 

The PILER 2015 Report on the Status of Labour Rights, fifth in the series, based on secondary research, aims to present an overview of the status of labour and the issues in the year impacting labour directly or indirectly. Currently, Pakistan has a labour force of 61.04 million, engaged in diverse sectors of economy, at various levels of occupations. The bulk of our non-agriculture labour force, 72.6 per cent, is employed in the informal economy and if we include agricultural work force, the overwhelming labour force is toiling under informal work arrangements, and the key issue with the informal economy is its lack of documentation.

Click on the link below to view the complete report:

Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan: The Year 2015

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The Erosion of Unions

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2023

Unions perform multiple economically valuable functions… — Richard B. Freeman

IN times of erosion of trust in our institutions — parliament, the judiciary, army and the state — it is challenging to talk about labour unions struggling on the fringes for decades and held in low esteem by our elite and in mass opinion.

But it is worthwhile to reiterate that unions are an important component of labour market institutions tasked with functions essential for a just and sustainable economy.

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Census Takers

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2023

The melancholy of having to count souls/ Where they grow fewer and fewer every year. — Census Taker by Robert Frost

THE poem published in 1923 by the American poet captures the solitude of the locale, of diminishing life as farmers left the New England region in droves and headed to the cities in the early 20th century. What have the census takers in Karachi in 2023 felt while counting the people? By all accounts, it was exasperation.

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Wage Theft

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2023

THREE years have gone by since the WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Termed as the world’s most serious humanitarian crisis since World War II, it is still being debated whether the pandemic is over or not as new infections and deaths occur in a number of countries. By February 2023, 6.8 million people had died. Besides, hundreds of millions of people lost jobs globally, millions saw their salaries cut or work hours reduced. Most countries have not yet returned to the levels of employment and hours worked before the outbreak. According to an ILO report, informality and working poverty have risen further with the Covid-19 crisis.

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Gas infrastructure & communities

Published in Dawn, March 4th, 2023

NATURAL gas has played a major role in Pakistan’s energy matrix since the first large reserve was discovered in Sui, Balochistan, in 1952. Significant gas fields of smaller sizes were discovered subsequently and made operational in the provinces, particularly Sindh where the gas reserve at Mari was discovered in 1956, and the Qadirpur and Miano gas fields in the 1990s. Since then, exploration, discoveries and oil and gas production have continued.

Oil and gas extraction requires huge capital, sophisticated technology and highly skilled labour. The first beneficiaries are thus the investors — operating companies and management (national or global corporations).

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A Potential Game Changer

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2022

WHILE the global textile and apparel industry is in the process of moving into total digital transformation, Pakistani industry is struggling with basic workplace safety issues. So how can the Pakistan Accord on Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry be a game changer? Precisely because a sound infrastructure is the edifice the industry — any industry, especially a labour-intensive industry — is built upon. If the entire industry endorses, owns and implements the Accord, which is to be launched in January 2023, it can trigger a process of change for the better.

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Trade Unionism in Transition

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2022

TRADE unions are in a flux the world over. The first two decades of the 21st century, characterised by heady globalisation and ruthless neoliberalism, accelerated the downfall of workers’ associations. The last two years of the Covid-19 pandemic came as a jolt. Trade unions realised it was time to do or die; change or bust.

One could sense a change in their perspective while listening to over 80 trade unionists and labour activists of the four provinces who gathered in Karachi recently and talked their hearts out. Consumed by internal weaknesses and worn out by persistent challenges, the senior leadership, though jaded, still exuded a passion for a just world of work and a desire to leave something tangible for posterity.

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