Research Reports

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan: The Year 2015

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Status of Labour Rights in Pakistan: The Year 2014

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

The task of capturing the status of labour in all its diverse aspects is onerous. Particularly in a country where the State keeps shedding its responsibilities of regulation, documentation, inspection, and monitoring of the complex world of work, where culture is heavily tilted towards oral tradition rather than written, where informal economy is the norm and where social justice and human and labour rights lay at the bottom of the policy-makers’ agenda.

Despite constraints to acquiring accurate data, useful insights and analyses, and with limited resources, PILER, in recent years, has initiated to review the changing trends in labour and employment, and the factors impacting on workers’ lives and the terms and conditions of work. The review also documents the workers’ struggles to confront repressing forces let loose by deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation.

This report, fourth in the series, is yet another modest attempt to put together glimpses of the world of work in Pakistan and present a picture of the current status of labour in the country. The first section of the report, based on secondary research, gives an overview of the socio-economic and political context, human development indicators, legislative development, labour market indicators and the existing terms and conditions of employment. The second section of the report pres- ents a collection of research articles, case studies, and analyses of trends and issues related to labour and employment. PILER is greatly indebted to the researchers and writers who contributed to this section.

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Valuing Women’s Care Work in Pakistan: Lady Health Workers’ Struggle for Rights and Entitlements (2017)

This case study was conducted for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), with the financial support of ActionAid France in 2017. It was published in both English and French. 

The Lady Health Workers (LHW) Programme, instituted in 1994, is considered one of the largest and successful community based primary healthcare initiatives in the world. The lady health workers’ role has received recognition by the global health bodies in improving Pakistan’s maternal and child health indicators. Currently more than 130,000 lady health workers reach out to 60 to 70 per cent of the country’s population residing in rural and low-income urban areas.

Perhaps if it was not a collective struggle for their rights, the lady health workers would have continued to suffer injustice in silence: a low wage, no benefits and insecure job. It was death of a health worker at child birth that compelled Bushra Arain, a Lady Health Supervisor, to rebel against the irony: health providers’ own deprivation of health facilities and lack of decent work conditions. She and several other lady health supervisors mobilised the workers and founded the union, the All Pakistan Lady Health Workers’ Welfare Association, in December 2008. By early 2009, each district had a Baji (elder sister), a dynamic activist health worker to prepare the cadre for struggle. The union took to legal intervention and street power to claim their due rights at work place. The phenomenon was unique: never before in Pakistan’s history had women workers exercised the right to ‘collective bargaining’ in any sector, much less in the low-paid care economy.

 The case study aims to document the LHWs’ struggle, review the constraints they faced as women workers in a public sector health programme and as caregivers, identify the union’s strategies and highlight the achievements of their eight-year long battle.

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Labour Rights in Pakistan: Declining Decent Work and Emerging Struggles (2010)

This research report was written for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in 2010. 

This report is on the status of labour rights in the country. It encompasses four elements: fundamental principles and rights at work and international labour standards; employment and income opportunities; social protection and social security; and social dialogue and tripartism.

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Labour Rights in Pakistan: Declining Decent Work and Emerging Struggles

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Labour Rights in Pakistan: Expanding Informality and Diminishing Wages (2011)

This research report was written for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in 2011. 

The report highlights the absence of pro-labour strategies in the country’s economic design. It also highlights the destruction caused by the floods in 2010 and 2011. Consequently, the poor face further deprivation and 2.5 million affectees remain deprived of access to food, water, shelter and healthcare facilities. The flood affectees and working poor of the country do not have decent employment and the state has failed in rehabilitating them. The situation is worsened by an economic policy that relies heavily on exports.

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Labour Rights in Pakistan: Expanding Informality and Diminishing Wages

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Denial and Discrimination: Labour Rights in Pakistan (2007)

This research report was written for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in 2007. 

The report assesses the working conditions and employment situation in Pakistan. Apart from the secondary sources of media reports and internet, the report includes the input obtained through surveys, rapid assessments and sector profiles not to mention the national conventions of workers in the textile, brick kilns, transport, construction and light engineering sectors organised by PILER in 2005.

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Denial and Discrimination: Labour Rights in Pakistan

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Religious Minorities in Pakistan: Constitutional Rights and Access to Judicial System (2013)

This research report was written for the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) in 2013. 

This study, which was co-written by Yasmin Qureshi, sought to examine social and legal aspects impacting on the freedom of religion of the minorities in Pakistan. The constituional provisions, laws and judicial-administrative practices via-a-vis minorities were reviewed. An analysis of the role of the state, identity, religion and ideology in shaping the mindset of the dominant Muslim community was also attempted.

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Religious Minorities in Pakistan: Constitutional Rights and Access to Judicial System