KARACHI: Human Rights Department, Government of Sindh held a stakeholders’ consultation meeting on first draft of the Provincial Action on Business and Human Rights here on Wednesday.
The provincial has prepared the draft. Ms. Noreen Bashir, Secretary, Human Rights Department, presided over the meeting, whereas it was attended by representative of different government departments, representatives of Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), trade unions, employers, home-based workers and civil society actors.
At the outset, Ms Bashir provided an overview of concept of business and human rights based the three pillars: State Responsibility to Protect, Corporate Responsibility to Protect and Access to Remedy.
She highlighted that given the increasing number of platform and gig economy workers, it has emerged a need to legislate to provide labour rights to such category of the workers.
She added that in the context of emerging need of ensuring responsible business, a first draft of the Provincial Action Plan on Business and Human Rights has been prepared by Human Rights Department in the light UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Suleman Chawla, Vice President, FPCCI appreciated the initial draft of Provincial Action on Business and Human Rights and termed it as very productive exercise.
He ensured that employers shall fulfill their responsibility to ensure human rights principles into business. Zulfiqar Shah, a labour rights expert recommend to the provincial government to register all unregistered labourers in the Sindh Employees’ Social Security Institution (SESSI), and Sindh Workers Welfare Fund Board.
Ms Zehra Khan from Home Based Women Workers Federation emphasized on implementation of Sindh Home-Based Workers Act, 2018. She recommended to Provincial Labour Department to start process of identification, mapping and registration of home-based workers.
Nasir Mansoor from National Trade Union Federation shared that given the increasing international obligations on business and human rights, it is a need of the hour to codify business principles into human rights like many western countries have made. Ms. Munira from UNDP suggested to take into consideration economic and social aspects in the draft Action Plan.