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Hell-bent for leather Labour conditions in the leather industry in Pakistan

In Pakistan, leather is produced under deplorable conditions. Labourers work for long hours for low wages. Many suffer damage ttheir health, working with chemicals and unsafe heavy machinery. The European Union (EU) is the single most important export destination for Pakistani leather, and a sizeable portion of these imports goes tthe Netherlands. Pakistan falls under the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+), a trade scheme that aims to tstimulate the protection of human rights by exempting specific developing countries from trade tariffs, on the condition that they ratify and implement core international conventions relating to thuman and labour rights, the environment and good governance. While Pakistan’s leather industry has profited from this, interviews with workers reveal that they are still facing a wide range of labour rights violations.

Scope: 26 pages
Reference: free of charge for download at somo.nl