NHRF's field visit to Pakistan

During the trip, Special Rapporteur Forst met with several delegations from regional and federal authorities to discuss the situation of human rights defenders in Pakistan, and to offer technical support to governments in improving measures protecting human rights defenders. During the latter part of the trip, the NHRF Project Coordinator for Pakistan met with our grantee organisations and visited almost all of them in their offices in Lahore, Hyderabad and Nawabshah. The aim was to learn more about the important work our grantees do on the ground and to discuss the human rights challenges they face in their contexts.

10th February: Special Rapporteur Michel Forst met with the Sindh Human Rights Commission to discuss the recent developments of shrinking civic space in Pakistan, and to learn more about the ways the Commission works to investigate violations of human rights in Sindh Province. Additionally, the Special Rapporteur met with members of the Sindh Commission on the Status of Women who had invited around 25 women human rights defenders to talk about the challenges they face as defenders of their rights.

11th February: NHRF's grantee, the Sindh Human Rights Defenders Network, organized a seminar in Karachi, gathering human rights defenders from all of Sindh province to speak about their activism and to meet with the Special Rapporteur. The seminar was a crucial opportunity to link local human rights defenders and activists with the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and was attended by around 100 people.

11th February: The NHRF, the Special Rapporteur and a delegation of Pakistani civil society members met with the Chief Minister of Sindh Province, Syed Murad Ali Shah. The delegation discussed several issues with the Chief Minister, including the closing of NGOs, human rights violations by members of police, and the possibility of Sindh province paving the way in Asia to become the first province to enact a law explicitly providing protection to human rights defenders.

February 13: The NHRF, Special rapporteur and three of NHRF’s grantees visited the National Assembly in Pakistan, the National Human Rights Commission, and were granted the opportunity to meet with the President of Pakistan to discuss the situation of human rights defenders on a national level.

17th February: Project Coordinator Scott M. Sandvik and NHRF’s local consultant Zulfiqar Shah met with the NHRF grantee Women in Struggle for Empowerment (WISE) in Lahore. Members of WISE has held an important role in drafting and advocating for The Punjab Domestic Workers Act 2019, which was a landmark law providing protection for domestic workers in the Punjab province. Currently, WISE is working directly with domestic workers to raise awareness about the law and the protection and benefits it will provide for registered domestic workers.

19th February: The NHRF Project Coordinator and local consultant travelled to Nawabshah in Interior Sindh to meet with our grantee Hari Welfare Association (HWA) that works to promote peasants’ rights. HWA is doing vital work promote better working conditions for peasants, lobby for the implementation of the provincial bonded labour act, and to help develop district committees aiming to reduce the prevalence of bonded labour in the Sindh province.

19th February: In Hyderabad, the NHRF Project Coordinator met with the Coordinator of the Sindh Human Rights Defenders Network (SHRDN). The network functions as a crucial channel for mobilizing and coordinating defenders of human rights in the province, as well as providing training, capacity building and technical support to members of the network.

The COVID-19 situation in Pakistan

The NHRF is in daily contact with our partner organisations and local consultant who provides us with up-to-date information on the outbreak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Pakistan.

On 1st April, the Pakistani government extended its countrywide lockdown to 14th April. At this moment, there are 2,458 COVID-19 positive cases in the country, 35 deaths and 126 recovered patients. The testing is continuing slowly due to limited sources and capacity. In the Sindh province, with a 47 million population, there are only 10 hospitals that are conducting tests – eight of them in Karachi and only two in the rest of the province. With Pakistan’s poor health facilities and 207 million population, the coronavirus outbreak may put vulnerable groups at severe risk.

The economic impact, particularly on the labor force, is already unfolding. The majority of Pakistan’s workers are temporary daily wage workers or working in the informal economy such as domestic workers. Many of these have now lost their income. The Pakistani government has announced various economic relief packages, including the distribution of rations among the poor population. However, these resources are not yet available, and of no use for those who have already been without income for days or weeks.

It is not yet clear how the coronavirus pandemic will affect the human rights work in Pakistan. But with the economic ramifications being enormous, there is a grave concern that many families will spiral further into debt and labour bondage rendering them highly vulnerable to human rights abuses. Additionally, human rights defenders victims of enforced disappearances are still unheard of despite the authorities releasing a number of prisoners following the outbreak.

NHRF’s partner organizations in Pakistan are trying to raise the issue of laborers with the government, and HRDs are in a crucial position to monitor the government’s response and are actively working to document and report human rights violations. NHRF’s grantees see greater role of HRDs during these critical times and they are in touch with their constituencies and local authorities and assisting in information sharing for protection of human rights during the crisis and also in ensuring that the most vulnerable are accessing government relief.

Read more about the meeting that NHRF, the Special Rapporteur and a delegation of Pakistani civil society members had with the Chief Minister of Sindh Province, Syed Murad Ali Shah, in the newspapers The Tribune and Dawn.

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The COVID-19 situation in Pakistan