GENDER INITIATIVES:

 ‘Sindh Women Agricultural Workers draft Bill 2019’: The Sindh Women
Agricultural Workers draft Bill 2019 will provide female agriculture workers all
the rights, protections and benefits that had been denied to them so far, and
which are available to industrial workers under the existing labour laws.
Female workers in agriculture, livestock, fisheries and other agriculture-related
work would be covered under this bill. This is a big step towards the
empowerment and protection of rural female workers. This law will formally
recognise the role of female workers in the agricultural sector.
 According to the proposed law, a woman agriculture worker's salary shall not be less than
the minimum wage fixed by the government, and the work day shall not exceed eight
working hours and shall not commence until one hour after day break. The workers shall
also be entitled to 90 days of maternity leave.
 Under the proposed law, the Sindh government would set up the Benazir
Women’s Support Organisation (BWSO) under the labour department with
an empowerment fund to provide technical and financial assistance to
women workers
 It clearly defines agriculture work as “all activities related to cultivation of
crops, animal husbandry, poultry, livestock rearing, apiculture, gardening,
fishing, aquaculture, sericulture, vermiculture, horticulture, floriculture,
agro-forestry, or any other farming activity carried out through self-
employment, tenurial cultivation, share cropping, or other types of
cultivation, collection, use and sale of minor or non-timber forest produce
by virtue of ownership rights”.