"Pakistan’s textile industry is in crisis – and women are bearing the brunt of its decline", 1 February 2023

Over the years, women in Pakistan’s once thriving textile industry have played a crucial role supplying Europe and the US with items from denim to towels. But since the pandemic, 7 million workers have been laid off due to low exports and the country’s grave economic crisis...

For Faisalabad’s female textile workers the biggest worry is that these jobs will be lost for ever. That is worse than their delayed and underpaid salaries, the harassment they face at work and having no healthcare facilities.

For those rural women who travel to the factories from surrounding areas early in the morning and work long days for low pay, this is their only source of income...

...the pressure on the industry is immense: electricity costs have doubled; floods have devastated cotton fields, adding to shortages; the government has placed limitations on credit.

Hundreds of factories have closed or are working short shifts. Workers have been fired. Even the cottage industry of female workers, sewing at home, lacks support or incentives...

The Women Workers’ Alliance (WWA) is protesting against the mass layoffs in the industry, and demanding workers are paid. I’ve conducted education sessions with hundreds of women over labour laws and collective rights but still there is a lack of awareness....

Women are reluctant to raise their voices because they fear it will mean losing their jobs...

One of the key issues is that we cannot meet with women at their workplaces for any union activity, and they are bussed in to these workplaces by the the owners....

In small mills labour laws are ignored and workers denied even maternity leave...