Pakistan Bulletin
An up-to-date and informed analyses of key issues of Pakistan.
Pakistan’s 4th UPR: Labour Issues & Implementation of Recommendations
January 2024
On the first anniversary of Pakistan’s fourth review, this article quickly enumerates the 2023 UPR’s labour-related recommendation and the status of their implementation.
The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) is a relatively recent innovation. It provides for a recurring assessment of the overall human rights situation of every UN member state once every four and a half years.
Under the UPR mechanism, Pakistan has so far been reviewed four times: in May 2008, October 2012, November 2017 and most recently in January 2023. Over the years, the country has received around 850 recommendations on a range of human rights themes.
It must be said, however, that Pakistan’s civil society has so far made what can at best be described as scant use of the UPR, through the various phases of each cycle. This would be touched upon towards the end of this article with reference to UPR recommendations made to Pakistan on labour issues, an area of particular focus for the The Knowledge Forum.
On the first anniversary of Pakistan’s fourth review, this article quickly enumerates the 2023 UPR’s labour-related recommendation, the status of their implementation, before briefly reflecting upon the role of the civil society stakeholders in this respect. This article is in continuation of a 2023 TKF report that assessed the implementation status of labour-related UPR recommendations made to Pakistan in its first three UPRs.
Workers’ rights in Pakistan represent a key human rights area with diverse challenges.
Workers’ rights in Pakistan represent a key human rights area with diverse challenges. Out of the total 847 UPR recommendations made to Pakistan across the four UPR cycles, 37 (4.37%) directly address labour issues and workers’ rights, either partially or wholly.
Out of the 16 labour-related recommendations in the 2023 UPR, five (by Paraguay, Niger, Senegal, Togo, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire) exclusively or partly called for ratification of the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.
Pakistan has not ratified the convention nor has there been any discussion about ratification in the policy-making circles in the past one year.
Another five recommendations in the 2023 UPR related to the prohibition of child labour. There was partial implementation of four somewhat more general recommendations (made by France, Libya, Nepal and Palestine) that called for “continuation of efforts” to counter child labour. This partial implementation did not include any new legislative or policy initiatives, or more focused implementation of the existing law. It was essentially a continuation of ongoing initiatives under the prevalent legal and administrative frameworks.
Through one of these recommendations, the Philippines urged strict enforcement of the prohibition of child domestic labour and counseled Pakistan to consider ratifying the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189) of the International Labour Organization (ILO). A year later, Pakistan is no closer to ratifying the Convention 189. Although a few advocacy events, including one by the Pakistan Workers Federation (PWF), in collaboration with ILO, in August 2023 emphasized the urgent need for the ratification.
There has also been little by way of concrete action for strict enforcement of the prohibition of child domestic labour.
At least four recommendations in the 2023 UPR emphasized greater participation of women in the workforce and empowerment of women workers. Another (by Liechtenstein) called for effective prevention of the trafficking in women and girls for forced labour.
In response to Slovenia’s recommendation, there was little evidence of any focused or targeted action “to encourage greater participation of women in the labour force, addressing the gender pay gap, reduce unemployment among women and promote the participation of women in managerial and leadership positions”.
Any concrete “further steps” urged by Bulgaria for women’s empowerment by “ensuring access to education, professional realization in the labour market…” as well as enforcement of “the principle of equal pay for work of equal value”, sought by Romania, remained elusive a year after the fourth review. Somalia’s counsel for efforts to fight unemployment among women did not translate into any specific efforts.
Any concrete “further steps” urged by Bulgaria for women’s empowerment by “ensuring access to education, professional realization in the labour market…” as well as enforcement of “the principle of equal pay for work of equal value”, sought by Romania, remained elusive a year after the fourth review. Somalia’s counsel for efforts to fight unemployment among women did not translate into any specific efforts.
When a new political dispensation emerges in 2024, civil society would do well to make better use of the opportunity that the UPR recommendations offer.
Amid Kuwait’s call for “continued measures to ensure employment opportunities and strengthen social security”, 2023 saw a continuation of the trend of growing unemployment and financial difficulty for lower-income groups that has persisted for the last several years. Measures to strengthen social security were recommended, but nothing substantial materialized.
It should be easy to agree that implementation efforts of most of the labour-related recommendations over the past year have been far from impressive.
A quick glance demonstrates also that many of the most pressing labour issues in Pakistan are conspicuously missing in the 2023 recommendations and several are what in the development lexicon is called SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound).
This too has a context. Barring very few exceptions, Pakistani civil society, including trade unions and labour support groups have either not engaged with the UPR process or their engagement is not ongoing, but cyclical or periodic, emerging only a few months ahead of the review itself. This contributes considerably to inefficient follow up of implementation efforts as well as many pressing issues not finding expression in the recommendations made to the country.
With regard to progress on implementation in 2023, it is fair to say that the political context too has been a factor.
A general lack of meaningful measures to realize the accepted UPR recommendations in a year may be disheartening, but it would not have been surprising even in a typical first post-UPR year in Pakistan. With the political parties at each other’s throats ahead of elections, however, 2023 was not a typical year. It has been impossible to ignore that, rhetoric aside, neither the government’s nor opposition’s focus, legislative or otherwise, has been on the welfare of the people.
When a new political dispensation emerges in 2024, civil society would do well to make better use of the opportunity that the UPR recommendations, and the process on the whole offers. Ongoing efforts to benefit from the process can only help further the human rights agenda of CSOs.
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