PAKISTAN
December 22, 2025
DAWN
EUROPEAN patients sleeping on clean hospital sheets likely pay no attention to the hands that stitched them and the terrible cost paid by those hands. A new study, authored by Swedish NGO Swedwatch with Pakistani partner AwazCDS-Pakistan, shows how the EU’s public expenditure is linked to labour abuse, especially within Pakistan’s textile sector.
Based on interviews with 89 workers in nine Faisalabad and Karachi factories, the report tells a shameful tale. Most workers are not hired directly but through private contractors, often without written contracts, allowing factories to dodge responsibility for wages, benefits and safety.
Many workers do not even know which brands or countries their products go to, only that they are ‘for export’.
In reality, much of this production supplies EU public hospitals, including bed linen, patient garments and staff uniforms.
Pakistan’s legal minimum wage is Rs37,000 a month, yet workers in Faisalabad reported earning Rs15,000-30,000, while some survive on as little as Rs250 a day if work is scarce. In Karachi, workers earn Rs20,000-30,000 but only by working 16- to 18-hour shifts. The law says Rs37,000 is enough, but the report shows a family needs more than Rs75,000 to live with dignity, meaning even ‘legal’ wages keep workers poor.
The list of injustices runs longer. Work hours routinely exceed the legal 48-hour week, with overtime unpaid or disputed. Safety is barebones, if at all it exists. Workers describe poor ventilation, chemical exposure, blocked fire exits, and masks handed out only for audits. Injuries are common, yet compensation is rare. Women and trans workers are exposed to greater harm. The study documents a clear gender pay gap, sexual harassment that goes unpunished, and grievance systems that workers do not trust. Unionising is effectively forbidden, so much so that even suspicion of union activity can lead to dismissal. The report argues that European buyers rely on easily staged audits that fail to detect abuse. Its key recommendation is for the EU to make human rights due diligence mandatory in public procurement, ending price-only contracts and demanding real transparency from suppliers. But Pakistan need not wait for Europe. Provincial governments should license labour contractors, digitise worker registration for social security, and link export incentives to verified wage and overtime payments. Most importantly, workers must be allowed to organise without fear. EU taxpayers’ money should heal patients, not quietly bankroll exploitation.
Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2025
The list of injustices runs longer. Work hours routinely exceed the legal 48-hour week, with overtime unpaid or disputed. Safety is barebones, if at all it exists. Workers describe poor ventilation, chemical exposure, blocked fire exits, and masks handed out only for audits. Injuries are common, yet compensation is rare. Women and trans workers are exposed to greater harm. The study documents a clear gender pay gap, sexual harassment that goes unpunished, and grievance systems that workers do not trust. Unionising is effectively forbidden, so much so that even suspicion of union activity can lead to dismissal. The report argues that European buyers rely on easily staged audits that fail to detect abuse. Its key recommendation is for the EU to make human rights due diligence mandatory in public procurement, ending price-only contracts and demanding real transparency from suppliers. But Pakistan need not wait for Europe. Provincial governments should license labour contractors, digitise worker registration for social security, and link export incentives to verified wage and overtime payments. Most importantly, workers must be allowed to organise without fear. EU taxpayers’ money should heal patients, not quietly bankroll exploitation.
Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2025
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