Press release
State must provide relief to struggling millions
Lahore, 22 August 2024. At a public meeting held today, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) and Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights (JAC) called on the government to take immediate action to provide relief to the millions of ordinary citizens grappling with the spiralling cost of living.
Speakers deplored the tacit alliance between the business, agricultural and industrial elite with state establishment, which they said had skewed the distribution of wealth and produced a consumption-heavy economy, leaving millions of people struggling to make ends meet.
Among the participants were JAC convenor Irfan Mufti, HRCP secretary-general Harris Khalique, rights activist Mohamad Tahseen, academics Fahd Ali and Salima Hashmi, labour rights activists Latif Ansari, Farooq Tariq and Rubina Shakil, Human Rights Watch representative Saroop Ijaz, and student rights activists Ali Raza and Muzammil Kakar.
The participants passed a resolution calling for price controls to be imposed on essential goods such as staple foods, fuel and essential medicines. Working-class households should also be given subsidized access to electricity, gas, potable water, connectivity and public transportation.
While a living wage should eventually be instituted to ensure that all households enjoy a reasonable standard of living, in the short term the minimum wage must be raised in direct proportion to the rate of inflation. Immediate action must also be taken to ensure fair and equitable wages for women working in the informal sector.
Existing social safety net programs must be scaled up to ensure that vulnerable households do not fall below the poverty line. The right to pensions, healthcare benefits and unemployment benefits should be available to all.
The annual budgets for education and health should be increased to at least 4–6 percent of GDP to allow the government to provide free universal primary education, free school meals, affordable secondary and higher education, and a free national health service.
The state must focus on creating employment opportunities, especially for those displaced by conflict or climate change. It must ensure that workers are not treated as disposable commodities and protect the right to safe and secure working conditions for all.
‘Austerity’ measures such as regressive taxation in the form of indirect taxes must be countered and replaced with progressive taxation. The federal government must also disclose the status and terms of repayment of loans acquired from multilateral bodies and make a strong case for debt retirement and reparations through a comprehensive debt audit.
Finally, the real estate sector must be regulated through progressive taxation to restrict the hoarding of land and natural resources, while agricultural land should be protected from elite-led housing schemes.
Concluding the meeting, HRCP treasurer Husain Naqi said that civil society must launch a mass movement to demand that political parties put the interests of the working classes ahead of those of the establishment.
Asad Iqbal Butt
Chairperson