Cotton picking women and adolescent girls of Southern Punjab sensitized on child labour, forced labour and OSH

ILO organised series of five farm level awareness raising seminars cum workshops on child labour, forced labour and OSH for the cotton picking women and adolescent girls workers of Southern Punjab under its project “Elimination of Child Labour and Forced Labour in the Cotton, Textile and Garment Value Chains: an Integrated Approach” Co-funded by the European Union.

Press release | Southern Punjab, Pakistan | 25 November 2019
MULTAN (ILO News): The ILO under its project “Elimination of Child Labour and Forced Labour in the Cotton, Textile and Garment Value Chains: an Integrated Approach” Co-funded by the European Union organized a series of five farm level awareness raising seminars for the Cotton Picking women and adolescent girls workers of Southern Punjab. These awareness raising seminars were organised with the support of Pakistan National Textile Leather Garments & General Workers Federation [PNTLGGWF] at Multan, Vehari, Sahiwal, Muzafargarh and Burewala.

Well over 200 cotton picking women and adolescent girls benefited from these sensitization events against the target of 150. To facilitate the learning experience of participants a pictorial toolkit containing key messages around child labour, forced labour and occupational safety and health was developed in Urdu while using the existing material of ILO and other development partners. This toolkit proved instrumental for engaging the participants with limited educational background, as was expected at the conception stages of this activity.

During technical sessions of these seminars the representatives of ILO, PNTLGGWF and national experts interacted with the audience to improve their understanding around the concepts and issues of child labour, forced labour and occupational safety and health. The theoretical sessions on occupational safety and health was supported by practical in the cotton fields at each venue to demonstrate the use of protective instruments and explain their benefits. To ensure effective delivery of message and information to each participant the seminars were conducted bilingually using Saraiki, Punjabi and Urdu languages.

Speaking to the concluding ceremony at Tibba Sultan Pur, District Vehari, Ms Ingrid Christensen, the Country Director ILO Pakistan reaffirmed ILO’s commitment of promoting decent work for all – including workers of informal sectors as important strategy to make sure that no one is left behind. She while noting the quite low women’s participation rate in Pakistan, lauded the contributions of working cotton picking women and adolescent girls towards the livelihood of their communities and nationally to the textile sector. While addressing them, she saw them as catalysts and change agents, and hoped that they would be working in their respective communities towards elimination of child and forced labour and improvement of OSH conditions. Earlier, Ms Farida Zaheer, General Secretary PNTLGGWF in her opening remarks praised the ILO and EU for partnering to reach out the workers of the cotton fields being the starting point of the textile and garment value chain. She also requested the participants to take advantage of this learning opportunity by maximum participation with the intent to practice the key lessons in their routine life.

The participating village women and adolescent girls had express their gratitude towards the ILO, European Union and PNTLGGWF for approaching them at their villages, homes and farms. A number of them also testified for being the pioneer program of such sort in the cotton belts. These seminars, besides educating and awareness raising around child labour, forced labour and occupational safety and health, provided an opportunity to women and adolescent girls workers of the cotton picking community to share their issues, challenges and discuss possible solutions.

At the end of each seminar a simple assessment of these seminars were conducted to understand as if the key messages have passed to audiences, to take feedback on the contents, and assess the levels of understanding. These assessment showed encouraging results of these seminars cum workshops at the form level. The participants also expressed their commitment to share the learnings of these seminar with their family members, relatives and neighbouring communities. The cotton picking women and adolescent girls where appreciated the efforts also requested the ILO to further organize such farm level trainings cum awareness raising seminars.