Dutch Ambassador visits PILER Centres

KARACHI: Ambassador of Kingdom of Netherlands, Ms. Ardi Stoios-Braken Visited PILER Centre at Gulshan-e-Maymar here on Wednesday and held a detailed meeting with the Executive Director of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) Mr. Karamat Ali and senior staff of the organization.

Ardi Stoios-Braken discussed the issues and problems of the Pakistani labour and appreciated the efforts of PILER for the workers’ capacity building and research.

Karamat Ali briefed the Dutch Ambassador about PILER’s work in the fields of research and capacity building of labour. He also informed her about two-day National Conference on Human Rights and Labour Rights, which was concluded yesterday, which was attended by trade unions leaders from across the country.

Zulfiqar Shah, Joint Director of PILER also briefed her about PILER’s work and said PILER has been working since 1982. Besides its traditional research and training work, it has also made efforts at the policy level. In Sindh it has recently worked on Sindh’s Labor Policy, which was announced by the provincial government early this year. Besides that PILER also closely worked with the provincial government on holding first-ever Sindh Tripartite Labour Conference, which is a mandatory exercise under the ILO Conventions.

Due to efforts of labour organizations and PILER the Sindh Assembly yesterday passed a law for Home based workers. This laws is the first in Pakistan and Sindh has taken the lead, he informed her.

He said PILER has been engaging in Public Interest Litigation and it has got court orders on many important issues like deaths of kids in Thar, Police Reforms in Sindh, Compulsory and free education for all children and inquiry and compensation for Baldia Factory Fire incident. He also explained her the efforts of PILER in providing compensation to the victims families from the German buyer company KiK.

Karamat Ali present Sindh’s traditional Ajraks to the visiting guests. Later, the Dutch envoy went round the PILER Centre and also took keen interest in the monument in memory of victims of Baldia Factory Fire incidents.