HomeNet Pakistan

HomeNet Pakistan (HNP) is working for women who work at home and these women are the maximum of the deprived strata of the population of Pakistan. Women home based workers need a great deal of support at different levels and the support is of different kinds .They want support in information, knowledge , capacity building – developing contact, presenting issues, advocacy skills , designing and marketing etc. Apart form this what  they essentially want is linkages and that is of two kinds ; i) institutions and ii) individuals ; who could play a role to support them so that what ever knowledge and advocacy they are doing could possibly materialize into something concrete and tangible. Another kind of linkage is among the organizations themselves i.e. networking. Here organizational strength is required while making efforts to strengthen home based workers; creating linkages, networking, capacity building and advocacy.

HomeNet South Asia is a network organization of women homebased workers promoted by UNIFEM and SEWA. It was set up after the Katmandu Declaration, formulate in conference in Nepal in year 2000.

In South Asia, there are about 50 million homebased workers, out of whom 80% are women. The Asian Region is a key area for organizing homebased workers due to the high number and a strong history of successfully organizing these workers.

The Networks of homebased workers are expanding in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh. The network organization developed in these countries are HomeNet India in India, HomeNet Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, HomeNet Pakistan in Pakistan, HomeNet Nepal in Nepal and HomeNet Bangladesh in Bangladesh.

HomeNet, Pakistan is a network of organizations working for the recognition and labour rights of home-based workers. HNP recently got registered under the Societies Registration Act on November 2nd, 2005. HNP is a member of HomeNet, South Asia, which consists of HomeNet, Bangladesh, HomeNet, India, HomeNet, Nepal and HomeNet, Srilanka.

HNP is currently aims at developing a multi-pronged strategy to address the challenges faced by the home-based workers. Specifically, those that can be summarized into three main issues:

a)                  Invisibility

b)                  Lack of access to resources such as land, labour, capital and markets and

c)                  Lack of social protection

Therefore the objective of the HNP is to ensure safe and secure livelihoods for home-based workers in Pakistan. It aims to strengthen the capacities of the organizations and networks of home-based workers in Pakistan and in South Asia   and promote affirmative policies for improving the working and living conditions of home-based workers in Pakistan and in the region.

Our Niche

With 30% of the population of Pakistan unable to fulfill its minimum food requirements, another 20% barely able to meet their other basic needs, it is not surprising that these women continue to work under these conditions. If there is to be any substantive alleviation of poverty in the country, then the livelihood conditions of home-based women workers, a major section of society, need to be changed drastically.

For this the first requirement is that they should be recognised not just as poor women, deserving of charity and some welfare schemes. They have to be seen as workers. They have to be seen as producers. Their output has to be increased with skill development training, improved technologies, access to credit and direct access to the market. They also need to be adequately reflected in statistics and recognised as workers in the labour laws of the country, thus making them eligible for social protection.

Background

An estimated 50 million out of 151 million are currently living below the poverty line in Pakistan and the poverty levels are rising sharply. The capacity of the poor to improve their conditions of living is constrained by their powerlessness within political and social systems and is linked to inappropriate government policies, no access to information and resources, poor quality of social services and gender inequality.

It is also increasingly evident that women and girls in poor households bear a disproportionately high share of the burden of poverty. Their greater deprivation is due to a host of factors, including restricted mobility, lack of education and training, lower access to or ownership of resources and assets, and limited access to credit and social services. As a result of this Pakistani women have limited participation in decision-making in all spheres of life from family to state. This is however, a vicious circle, as this state of affairs also persists because women have no say in decisions affecting their economic and social status in society.

HomeNet Pakistan (HNP) is a registered entity registered under Societies Registration Act, XXI of 1860 on 2nd November 2005. HNP comprises of a Board of Governors.

Mission

Vision

Goal

To strengthen HomeNet Pakistan so that it is able to  mainstreaming home based workers in national policies and programmes in order to attain greater human security including economic security to meet basic needs and to deal with risks and vulnerabilities, while still ensuring their visibility and participation.   

Objectives

•   Raise awareness through printed materials and meetings about the situation of women home-based workers with key social groups with local influence, e.g. civil society activists, teachers, lawyers, media professionals, local level public representatives and legislators, government policy makers and planners.

•   Undertake field and desk research on the situation of specific groups of workers and their conditions of work.

•   Promote social protection for these workers in the non-government sector and encouraging joint experiments by the organizations for social protection for home-based workers. Facilitate marketing, training, networking and linkages for women home-based workers at the local and international levels.

•   Facilitate networking among the organizations working with women home-based workers.

•   Undertake advocacy with public representatives at all levels and with government policy makers and planners for the development of a national policy for these workers and for the ratification of ILO Convention 177 to recognize these women as workers and to protect them under the labor laws of the country

 Board of Governors

Organisational Structure

Programme Areas

Information development and dissemination

Gather and re-package information about international best practices, governmental and non-governmental programmes, the home-based workers and their organizations for larger dissemination.

Advocacy

Undertake advocacy with public representatives at all levels and with government policy makers and planners for the development of a National Policy for home-based workers.

Networking

Develop a network among women home-based workers and organizations working with home-based workers and facilitate their cross learning and cooperation to empower women home-based workers.

Capacity Building

Facilitate learning opportunities for home-based workers and organizations working with home-based workers.

Key Activities

1. Research on Social Security needs of home-based workers

2. Round Table discussion on Developing Social Security Strategies for Women Home-workers in Pakistan

3. South Asian Home-based Women Workers' Craft Mela

4. Networking Meetings with NGO's and field visits

5. Meetings with Government officials and insurance companies

6. National workshop on “Designing A National Strategy” for Strengthening Women Home-workers

7. Marketing and Design workshops for home-based workers

8. Linkages with media and lobbying to highlight the issues of women home   workers.

9. Developed and facilitated the process of drafting National Policy  women home workers and advocacy and lobbying with public representatives.

Membership of HomeNet Pakistan

Get your organization registered with HomeNet Pakistan if you are:

• A NGO working for right based gender governance, advocacy, training and capacity building, micro entrepreneur, Research, Policy and planning institute or
• Working directly with Home based workers as CBO , CCB , producer organization

HNP Membership Form