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THE federal government has announced a multibillion package for the agricultural sector to boost a neglected part of our economy. The plan includes Rs110 billion direct investment and 80 per cent increase in agro credit to bring it to Rs2.7 trillion over the next three years.
The government claims that the much-awaited package would help alleviate rural poverty and increase household incomes. But it fails to explain how it would change the current labour situation in the sector. Of Pakistan’s 65 million-strong labour force, 38pc are employed in the agricultural sector and are considered marginalised and vulnerable.
Though the portion of wage labour in the sector has increased in the last couple of decades, a majority still work under sharecropping arrangements regulated under a 70-year-old piece of legislation called Tenancy Regulations in Sindh and Punjab, the two provinces employing 80pc of farm labour.
Rights must be given to those who feed the nation.
The latest amendment in the Sindh Tenancy Act, 1950, made in 2013, was to regularise begaar (unpaid work). Fortunately, the Sindh High Court in October 2019 struck down the exploitative amendment and asked the provincial government to update the law taking into account fundamental rights in the Constitution. The judges in their detailed verdict reproduced excerpts from a decades-old hari report highlighting the fact that the situation of the sharecroppers has not changed much as their working conditions resembled slavery.
These observations are supported by international and national reports. The Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index estimates 3.1m people are working in bonded labour in Pakistan, the majority of whom are in agriculture. The Hari Welfare Association’s annual report documented that over 2,000 people were released from bonded labour only in Sindh in 2020.
Successive governments have acknowledged the presence of labour bondage particularly in the agricultural sector by enacting specific laws. However, they have miserably failed to implement these laws as there are hardly any prosecutions on record under the Bonded Labour Systems (Abolition) Act, 1992, or the Sindh Bonded Labour Systems (Abolition) Act, 2015. Wage labour in the agricultural sector is increasing particularly in medium and large farms in northern Sindh and southern Punjab. However, they also remain without any legal protection.
None of the over 100 labour laws is applicable to agricultural labour. The current minimum wage legislation doesn’t cover wage labour in the sector and the same is the case with social security and pension laws as they only cover industrial and commercial workers.
Without proper laws and rules outlining terms of employment and health and safety mechanisms or a policy and provision of social dialogue, there is a clear deficit of decent work in the sector which is a significant source of revenue for the foreign exchequer. Pakistan is the fifth largest producer of cotton and over 60pc of its export comprises textile and related value-added products. However, workers in the sector are deprived of their basic rights.
The Pakistan Labour Force Survey estimates a nominal 22pc female participation in the country’s workforce. Experts believe that the actual economic contribution of women, particularly in agriculture, is over 40pc. This valuable contribution is diluted as unpaid family work. Sindh has promulgated a specific law to protect the rights of women agricultural workers, but implementation remains a challenge.
Of the estimated 12m child labourers in the country, 60pc are in agriculture and allied activities, many of them engaged in hazardous work.
The federal government’s current agricultural package or even similar packages and policies at the provincial level are labour blind. How can a vital sector of the economy progress if the lack of rights of the people in the sector is not rectified? This reflects the ignorance of our policymakers who miss the point that development and economic progress is all about people, not solely money and machines.
If the intention is to improve the agricultural sector then the package needs to be revisited and must start with labour reforms that include bringing in new legislation to extend fundamental rights to the agricultural workers eg right to association, access to remedy by establishing hari/kisan courts, a time-bound plan to eradicate bonded labour and reduce child labour. The extension of a minimum wage labour law to the agricultural sector and social security coverage is equally important. Women workers may need special attention on the pattern of the Sindh law along with a practical implementation plan.
The sector has the potential to bring the economy out of the current crisis as well as generate employment, but the only way to make it happen is through a combination of economic investment, technological innovation and labour reforms.
The writer is a human rights and labour rights activist based in Karachi.
Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2021
