By Hiba Asad , Marsha Tayyab, Mehma Khan, Sara Noor and Sajjad Gul
Across the country, jharoo (broom) makers suffer from severe non-communicable health problems. In Karachi, the few that remain live along coastal villages. Disregarded by the Government, broom-makers have zero incentives to continue this profession. Yet they do.
KARACHI: “I feel suffocated at times in this closed space; if only it was a little uncluttered in here, it would have been much easier to breathe,” says Haroon, as he assembles the brooms with his dusty hands, one after another.
Haroon, 60-years-old, is a broom-maker, who sits at a small shop named “Sorghum Jharoo wala”, located at the corner of a narrow road in Hussainabad. He has been making jharoo for the past 35 years. He is exposed to various health hazards due to making and assembling the commodity.
In the initial days, this métier caused him variegated skin allergies. However, due to limited financial resources he was unable to get proper medical care. Thus, he opted for a home remedy; taking bath with neem leaves and water.
“It helped me with my allergy and proves to be a cheap solution,” he explained.
Haroon works singlehandedly for nine hours daily in a rented shop to complete his target of 100 brooms per day. A single broom costs him around Rs15 and he earns a profit of Rs500 on every 100 brooms that are sold. However, with the rent of the shop, the profit is barely able to pay his bills.
Like Haroon, there are innumerable workers at various broom-making workshops across the country, who have to deal with such precarious working conditions. This results in health conditions like Asthma, eye infections and skin allergies. However, most of these workers are very reluctant to speak up for their rights.
The handicraft of broom making
Brooms have been made and used for centuries and are a household necessity, actively used in households and workplaces. They are made from a variety of materials, both man-made and natural. Man-made bristles are generally made of extruded plastic and metal handles, whereas, natural-material brooms are developed from a variety of materials. The raw material generally includes stiff grasses such as broom-corn and sotol fiber.
The material used in broom making is shipped and bundled in large bales from Burma and is easily available at wholesale markets of Jodia Bazar. It is important to know that the raw materials for the broom and the broom-corn come into the workshops already processed. The only job left in the factories is the assembling and bundling of the processed raw material. These bundles are assembled according to the length of the grass and colour.
Later on, a small nail or two is used to secure the wire to the handle. The finished product made in the workshop is then sent to retail markets in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Keamari and Nazimabad.
On a daily basis, brooms can be seen in many small scale shops and stalls parked at streets, showcased for selling purposes. Prices vary according to where they are sold. The same phool jharoo (soft broom) might be cheaper at a stall than at a wholesale shop. It mostly starts at Rs20 and stretches up to Rs100 depending on its quality and weight.
Women artisans keep broom-making alive
In Pakistan, broom-making has remained a family business. The workforce comprises mainly of family members living in coastal villages where men and women, both, are involved in the task. However, recently, the production of brooms has increased in cities and local workshops. The traditional trade of broom-making is dying steadily and is creating a fear of redundancy among hundreds of people in this business.
Specialized in broom-making, in the midst of Mauripur, resides villagers of Budhni Goth. A majority of the people living in the village make brooms and provide it to the markets in the nearby area of Kharadar. Women of all ages in Budhni Town make brooms out of khajji (date-tree) leaves.
Bachlan, an old lady in the locality started making brooms out of khajji as a teenager. Now, at 70, she has passed this job down to her daughters who produce at least 100 brooms per day, within an hour. Considering the time limit, making one broom takes hardly five minutes.
Disheartened, Bachlan, the old spirit of Budhni Goth, shared her experience of how they sell their brooms at just Rs10, later seeing the same broom sold at a higher price in city markets like Jodia Bazaar. She left making brooms after she was diagnosed with Asthma.
“We look up to the Government to provide us incentives, but none are given to us; no one cares about the struggles that we put in to produce brooms,” Bachlan’s youngest daughter complains.
The cost of silence
Several federal and government officials were seen making statements about how committed they are to provide basic rights to workers, the regard they have for their dignity and how they would pay tribute to the concerted struggles of workers and employees on Labour Day. However, hard facts mentioned below paint a different picture.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), due to lack of regulatory enforcement of occupational health and safety standards in many countries, more than half of the workers employed in the informal sector receive no social protection for seeking basic health care.
Their statistics show that about 12.2 million people die annually from non-communicable diseases, mostly in developing countries, while still being in their active working age.
These workers are uneducated and mostly aren't even aware of their rights. On a daily basis, there are infringements faced by workers at their workplaces that go unreported. Same is the case with the workers at these broom workshops, where labour are deprived of healthy working conditions and don’t even receive reasonable wages. These issues are mostly swept under the carpet and are unspoken of, worsening the matter.
Implementation of laws
According to the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Pakistan has a standard code specifically for employees and labour that must be applied to all public and private sectors.
“Due to lack of routine inspection by the government, the compliance and implementation of these standards have been neglected,” Ali Mubashir, an official at PILER shares.
A report by a private news organization proved that there are only around 337 labour inspectors to cater to the needs of the entire country, which explains where the roots of the issue lie.
The Government of Pakistan is required to promote, protect and ensure complete enjoyment of human rights by workers in all aspects, yet it has failed to do so and has neglected the basic rights of the underprivileged labour.
“Labour laws are made with compliance of implementation and human rights convention. However, Pakistan needs to improve the working conditions for its labour no matter what," said the moderator, Shaukat, of PILER.
Abira Ashfaq, a lawyer, researcher and activist who has worked closely with home-based women workers in Budhni Goth Mauripur, Karachi, disagrees with the statements mentioned previously in the article. She believes that laws mentioned by big organisations have little impact due to lack of execution. According to her, when Pakistan signs any international convention, it develops laws under pressure that are rarely implemented.
“Many progressive laws have been made for all provinces in the past, especially in Sindh, but their execution remains a question mark,” Ashfaq added.
Unfair Labour Practices
At one of the crowded streets of Hussainabad, just opposite to a cobbler’s shop lies a Kaamwari broom workshop where all the basics for the completion of a broom can be witnessed.
Abdul Qadir, a 19-years-old, has been working in this workshop for about two years now. He makes 400 brooms within five hours. "I don’t get paid much but I choose to work here because the timings are pretty flexible. Once the task is done I can leave and play cricket at the club,” says Qadir.
Another worker named Habib, a 35-years-old who has been working at this workshop for almost 18 years now, is paid the same as Qadir, who has just joined the business.
"Any job I do is a thankless endeavour and for someone like me who is an 8th grade fail, what else can I do other than this?" Habib says.
Clearly, being an old employee hasn’t given him any edge over any other worker and voicing his disregard in this matter would lead to joblessness. Habib claims broom-making to be one of the hardest jobs. Being exposed to dust particles in a close, compact and less airy space without providence of masks had caused him shortness of breath and severe skin conditions.
Dr. Rafique Abbas, a skin specialist at National Medical Centre (NMC) says that ignoring a skin condition is the worst one could do. “It is very rare for a lower grade skin rash to become fatal, but you shouldn't take the risk of ignoring it,” he added.
Dr. Abbas expressed his concern over this issue and said that these poverty-stricken people have no other choice. They avoid taking proper treatment to save money, which results in further complications. Self-medication and home remedies are their only hope, which may work sometimes, but can also lead to horrifying results.
The laws in Pakistan are not designed for implementation, and in a developing country like ours, it’s important to restore the labour market by watching over their social security and rights. This would in return improve and promote trade as it is inextricably linked with labour rights at this point around the world.
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