The Problems of Working Women in Garments Factories in Faisalabad City
by
(Khurram Shahzad, Nankana Sahib)

1.0 INTRODUCTION: -

During the last decade a new phenomenon has emerged in rural and urban Pakistan that has started to significantly change the gendered structure of the labor market, women have increasingly entered the office sector and have started to work in middle level occupations that were regarded as exclusively male professions only few years ago. They work as secretaries, receptionist, and telephone operators, as drafts women designers, and computer operators. These women still constitute a very small minority among the male workers as well as among the women working in other professions. Such a move from the “female jobs” i.e. teaching and medicine has also resulted in pronounced effects on the social status of the working women. In Pakistani society working women have initiated willingly or unwillingly a process of desegregation of the lives of men and women, which has started at the work place, but which might also influence the whole social and gender order of society. Furthermore the entry of women into the labor market has fundamentally changed the status of these women, and it has changed existing societal concepts and expectations towards working women concerning their way of life, planning career choices and their status in family as well as in the society.

Islam has given the highest Position to the women on earth. Islam has accorded women a position of honour, respect, safety and love that has not been yet matched to this day. The status of women in Islam is given on the basis of equality and honour. Each of the five pillars is as important for women as for men and there is no differentiation in their reward. Hazrat Khadija, the wife of our Holy Prophet, conducted the business affairs by herself. This stands as a golden example before us.

As far so the capabilities of women are concerned, they are no less than men. Even from our independences earlier days, women have worked to overcome outdated social attitudes and to improve conductions for their sisters in the country. Yet the Pakistan population census of 1981.States that only three percent of these builders of the nation are what the government defines as ' working women'. This is a gross distortion of women’s actual economic contribution to the national productivity. (The News, 2001)

The women work just as hard as men, but they receive only half of their salary. Some of them do vocational jobs like knitting, stitching of garments, making of baskets, chairs and carpets etc.

Dr. Malik who is the Chairman of peace, Justice and Human Rights Commission of the Church of Pakistan, said in a massage on the event of the international women’s day that "Without the progress of women, society could not be put on the road to prosperity.

Working women are probably the most important for natural and national development. For a developing country, like Pakistan female labour force is as important as material ones. In our country female labour force has not been fully utilized because of their un- organizing supply, lack of training, want of job opportunities, insecure social environment and inadequate economic incentives.

Working women have to carry the extra load of work physically and physiologically. The work done by a woman for the household is more valued as compared to her role outside the family. It is thought that employment of woman affects relationship at home and she is considered a deviant member of the society. Inspire of all hindrance, Pakistani woman is fully aware of the situational demand for work and she is motivated to work for the improvement of herself, her family and ultimately her country.
Factories are one of the sectors where a lot of women work. In our country, due to rapid growth of industrialization there are more job opportunities for women in factories making garments for export.

Sewing, knitting, cutting, packing of clothes, weaving, embroidery and different other jobs are available in garments making factories. Working women are mainly facing three types of harassment at work place namely mental harassment, physical harassment and sexual harassment.

The problem faced by women in factories needs probing like adverse attitude of society members. The main aim of this research is to investigate the problems faced by the working women in garments factories. The present study is an attempt to look into various economics in which women are involved; their participation and satisfaction regarding their social and economics roles and their status in the changing economy.

2.0 OBJECTIVES: -

1. To explore the socio-economic characteristics of the respondents.
2. To investigate the nature of work that women are performing in Garment factories.
3. To find out the socio-economic and cultural factors which motivate the women to work in Garment factories?
4. To find out the perception of women about their work.
5. To asses the satisfaction level of working women regarding their work.
6. To identify the problems which working women often face.
7. To suggest some guidelines to reduce the problems of working women.

3.0 REVIEW OF LITERATURE: -

Sadia (2002) reported that according to Islam, women have greater responsibility to shoulder in the society and so, her participation must be much more extensive, not just limited to a career etc.

Yasmeen (2002) observed in her theses titled ''A Study of Problems of Working Women in export garment factories''. She observed that mostly the working women belonged to poor families. To Yasmeen due to lack of education youngsters have low awareness about their problems and they were reported satisfied told that their economic needs and problems forced them to work in that situation. Most of them were treated badly by the male colleagues. They had to face unfavorable attitude of relatives and society members. However, she found that the perception of people towards working women is changing but with low speed.

Hussain (2002) in his article ''curbing work place harassment ''concluded that I may be emphasized that the problems of harassment of women at the work place is not just a legal issue it is equally a social one through recognition of the principle of equal right and status of women and their full and effective participation in all sphere of national life. Daily times 2007 concluded that factory working women face harassment, a workplace unavailability of toilets ,nursery for their children where as home based working women get very low wages and not suitable working conditions, which results in mental and physical problems.

4.0 METHDOLOGY: -

The methodological techniques and ways of analyzing the observations play a significant role in social research. According to Nachmias and Nachmias (1981)''The scientific methodology is a system of explicit rules and procedures upon which research is based and against which the claims for knowledge are evaluated''.

UNIVERSE:
According to Dixon and Marry (1957), universe is ''Any set of individuals or objects having common observable characteristics.” The universe of the present study will be working women in Garment factories located in Faisalabad City. However two factories Chenab Fabrics and Masood Textile Mills Ltd. (MTM) will be surveyed.

SAMPLING FRAME:
All the working women working in Garment factories in Faisalabad City are sampling frame. The list of working women will be collected from Chamber of Commerce and Industries (CCAD), Faisalabad.

SAMPLING:
Simple Random sampling technique will be used in this study.

SAMPLE:
According to Goode and Hatt (1952),''A sample refers to small representation of the universe.'' There are one thousand women working in Masood Textile Mills and three thousand are working in Chenab Fabrics. The researcher will select 120 working women out of which 30 from Masood Textile Mills and 90 from Chenab Fabrics Faisalabad i.e. with the proportionate of 1:3.

TOOL FOR DATA COLLECTION:
According to Chaudhry (1984), “the most important part of statistically work is perhaps data collection” .The data will be collected with the help of interview schedule, consisting of a set of questions which will be asked from the respondents by interviews in a face to face situation.

DATA ANALYSIS:
Both descriptive and inferential statistics will be used for analysis of data. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) will be used for analysis of data.



BIBLIOGRAPHY : -

Chaudhry 1984 An Investigation to the Problems of Working Women, M.Sc. Thesis. Deptt of Rural Sociology. Univ.of Agriculture, Faisalabad.
Dixon,W.and F.Marry, Jr. 1957 An Introduction to Statistical Analysis McGraw Co. New York.
Dawn 2000 '' No Prosperity Without Women Progress''. A report of Dawn,
Goode,W.J.and P.K.Hatt 1952 Method in Social research (McGraw Hill Co. New York.
Hussain 2002 An article on ''Curbing work place harassment'','Dawn''.
Maqsood 2001 ''Women in Practical Life''The News International”
Nachmias, D. and C.Nachmias 1981 Research Methods in Social Sciences.Second
Edition. Press New York.
Regab 2001 ''Women in Islam have Rights''.Taken from the chronicle of Duke Univ.