Ume Laila Azhar

Ume Laila is the Executive Director of HomeNet Pakistan. She advocates for the recognition and support of home-based workers, domestic workers, and women in the informal economy to ensure that they have legal recognition as workers, security of income, social protection benefits, and participation in governance related to their concerns and livelihood.

APWLD interviewed Ume in February 2021 and below is her story.

Becoming a feminist and human rights defender

We are all products of our environment, and I am no exception.

I am from a very political and progressive family. When I was an adolescent, I chose political science as my undergrad major. In the mid-1970s, when I was in school, the political government was controlled by a dictator, and a 12-year dictatorship followed. The entire fabric of the country was undergoing “Islamisation” for which we have paid a high price as a nation. The whole new narrative of the country was rewritten with “Islamisation, sharia and democracy.”

Outside my home, there were several dimensions of discrimination going on—sexism and increasing Islamisation in its extreme form. I used to receive notifications daily that urge me to keep a distance from the opposite sex. The sharp contrast between what I experienced within my home, what I read, and what I saw and experienced outside my home spurred me to pour out my observations and thoughts on social injustices with a pen. 

As a student of Political Science, I questioned whether a state could have a religion. Religion and democracy are two distinct dichotomies and need to be separated. I have been thinking about it since my childhood, and my father answered all my questions in the long political discussions we used to have.

I was lucky to have inspiring professors and peers who were involved in women’s movements, and they used to speak passionately about the women’s movement in Pakistan. They shaped my critical thinking ability.

After graduating from college, I went into the development sector in 2000. That and the years of writing have led to the realisation that I was ready to be more praxis oriented. This is how I first got involved in women’s movements in Pakistan. I was on the periphery, but through reading feminist literature and participating in movements, I got to know the feminist in me and my niche: gender-based violence prevention and intervention and economic and Development Justice. 

Around 2005, I came across the movement for women in the informal economy. I began to visit the communities of women in the informal economy. For six or seven years, I spent my time in the field, sitting by the women, listening, and learning about their lives, inequalities, and the systemic barriers they face because of the huge void in planning for marginalised sectors. The one-on-one interactions helped me understand power relations, feminism, patriarchy, political divide and polarisation, and the capitalism and neo-liberalism paradox. Every time I came back from spending time with women in their community, it would spark a new direction for me to build advocacy, shaping my thinking and goal. Understanding intersectionality would provide a way for building partnerships and organising women with enhanced leadership. 

I knew nothing until I started sitting by the women. All the terminologies I learned from the field carved concepts into my mind. I remember when we were translating our documents into English, we were unsure about using the term ‘home-based worker’ to refer to Pakistani women working from home, but I thought the term would link our cause with the international movement for home-based workers around the world. I will never forget the moment when, many years later during a visit to a small village, a local woman came up to me and introduced herself as a home-based worker. It was very satisfying to see that our work on the ground has made an impact— because women workers who did not have any labour identity were able to recognise themselves as home-based workers. By identifying as home-based workers, they know they are entitled to rights under that terminology, and they know they are in solidarity with other thousands and thousands of home-based workers. I knew then that soon, the government of Pakistan would recognise these women as workers and count them as part of the labour force. This is the kind of story I hold dear to my heart. This is the kind of story that gets my blood boiling.

This is how I found my calling. My involvement with HomeNet started with a project in 2005-2006 for their research and publication when HomeNet was first established. In 2007, I was nominated to attend a South Asian policy conference in India with the government. By the time I came back from the conference, I was given the responsibility of running HomeNet. From scratch, we produced high-quality empirical research reports, organised grassroots women to join the movement, and worked to influence the government’s policy-making. 

My observation of the women’s movement in Pakistan

When I was younger, our movement was characterised by rebellion against the dictatorship. The movement was also compartmentalised because it was a rather elitist movement. There were very little space and the people with influence would often refuse to let anyone else in because they considered the movement as their baby and would not let outsiders ‘steal’ their baby. My theory is that many people joined the movement back then for employment opportunities rather than for the cause. 

I disagreed with such a harmful practice because underprivileged women needed to represent themselves, which would be impossible If they were blocked out by the elites, and it hindered strong intergenerational connections that would develop young leaders. I was against the hegemony of any kind and did not want to be part of any movement that only served the interests of elites.

So, I chose to work with women in the informal economy. I was able to bring some visibility to home-based workers with my work as I was invited to join the larger feminist movement. I did, representing my constituency rather than myself.

The movement, and every woman involved in the movement, faced another challenge: our society was dominated by men. Even within NGOs, I had to counter male colleagues’ prejudices against women colleagues. Advocating for a constituency that did not yet exist in official papers was impossibly hard because I had to fight at every level. I was even told to leave a meeting with the then Secretary of Labour because he thought it was ridiculous for me to speak about the rights of people like his maid. I had to show my commitment to the cause because women were not taken seriously.

Funding was also very hard to come by. I had to lobby international organisations and funding bodies like the United Nations (UN) because domestically, there was no money for our cause. Luckily, UN women and later International Labour Organization (ILO) responded under one UN program. We got the funding to grow our movement to a national level by building movements in different provinces and connecting them. We also started penetrating the communities, organising home-based workers, getting them to join and form large and small networks, conducting research, and writing about their issues and oppressions. 

There is still a long, long way to go, but we have had many minor victories. I count it as a victory when one more home-based worker tells me that she is getting more work and higher wages, when one more home-based worker realises that she has rights which are being compromised, when more people join the fight for women in the informal economy, when academics approach me to write on the women in the informal economy, or when women home-based workers stand up for their rights and bargain for their wages. 

Growing together with APWLD

I have already heard about APWLD’s work around 2010. Sharing APWLD’s mission, to build a strong feminist network in the Asian-Pacific region and link national movements with regional and international movements, our organisation applied to join the membership, and I personally attended its training. 

APWLD works with members and advocates for them to appear on more international platforms, creating spaces, starting dialogues, and highlighting their members’ issues. Active and proactive, the APWLD team always responds to regional initiatives in a timely manner. They exhibit their resistance and solidarity, which is important to building a strong and vibrant regional feminist network.

HomeNet is part of APWLD Feminist Development Justice (FDJ) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) monitoring and reviewing projects from 2020 to 2021, with our organisation becoming more closely related to the larger international advocacy for the SDGs. 

Joining APWLD has given HomeNet Pakistan a new perspective on our work. Our next five-year strategic planning is coming, and we will again adopt APWLD’s feminist perspective and feminist legal framework when concretising our agenda and goals. I believe our next focus will be negotiating with the governments directly and making more policy-level changes.

Womanifesto is very much close to my heart. It, along with FPAR, features very good and well-thought-out methodologies with a very rich knowledge bank. 

APWLD shares my belief and practice in that it also emphasises the training of next-generation leaders and building an intergenerational connection. I hope when COVID-19 is under control, APWLD will resume its tradition of hosting face-to-face meetings and training and have more leadership training and workshops for member organisations. Leadership training can be for two different levels, executive and policymaker. APWLD alone can’t train the next generation of feminist leaders, but it could provide the platform.