Stories of Empowerment – Case Studies of Empowerment of Rural Workers

With a population nearing 60 million, half of which occupies the two major cities of Karachi and Hyderabad, Sindh is the only province with a rural population in the minority. Research conducted by PILER shows that among this rural population 50 per cent of the available arable land is held by just 5 per cent of the population. This land is worked by landless peasants as seriously underpaid daily wage-earning labourers. It is not just the landless peasants that earn less than a living wage; underpaying is endemic. Whether they till the land or work on brick kilns or as unskilled labourers, the poor of Sindh receive well below what they deserve.