One year ago during the month of July/August, the floodwaters that ravaged southern parts of Pakistan have long receded. Though gone are the makeshift tent camps on roadsides revival of normal life and livelihood still remain a challenge. Thousands continue a daily struggle to support their families and re-establish livelihoods. As a new monsoon season is on full swing, last year's trauma and economic pain still linger. While last year's victims struggle to recover, others now worry that changing world weather patterns will cause renewed flooding. - IV439 - August 2011 / Ecology and the Environment, Women, Pakistan, Solidarity after disasters

“Pakistan's informal sector has grown about 20 percent in the last one decade, giving rise to exploitation of poor workers, especially home-based women workers by the business class. The informal sector workers are invisible, highly vulnerable and at the mercy of middlemen, contractors and sub-contractors. Millions of workers are engaged in informal economy and their wages are shamefully low. Government must provide social protection to these workers.”These views were expressed by speakers at May Day demonstration and rally, organized by Coordinating body of World March of Women (WMW) in Pakistan at Regal Chowk, the Mall to mark the International Workers Day on 1st May. - IV436 - May 2011 / Women, Pakistan, Precarious workers

The recent verdict of a lower court sentencing a Christian woman to death in a “blasphemy” case, and the subsequent murder of the Punjab Governor and then the Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti of who both supported the imprisoned woman, have posed the very vital question of whether Pakistani society has become intolerant, violent and extremist to the point of incorrigible. - IV434 - March 2011 / Women, Pakistan, Religion, violence against women

BUSHRA KHALIQ IS general secretary of the Women Workers Help Line (www.wwhl.org.pk) and a member of Labour Party Pakistan. She visited the United States in June, 2010 to speak at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit, and spoke in several cities at meetings organized by Solidarity and the International Socialist Organization. While in Detroit, she spoke with Dianne Feeley and David Finkel from the ATC editorial board. We began by asking Bushra about her perspective on the World Social Forum and the USSF, then about her own political work. - IVP 430 November 2010 / Pakistan, Social Forum, Global Justice, Floods

What is really needed is a united class-based struggle against the rotten system of capitalism, which is directly encouraging religious extremism and feudalism to continue. Capitalism, coopting with feudalism and extremism can not create the conditions in which women can enjoy full rights, freedom and equality. - IV421 - February 2010 / Women, Pakistan

On 10th January 2010, Anjumn Mazareen Punjab (AMP) (Punjab Tenants Organization) organized a public meeting in Renala Kurd, 100 km from Lahore, to commemorate the 8th death anniversary of Muhammad Basher Ahmad Shaheed, the first martyr among 11 of the movement. He was killed by Rangers in 2002. - IV420 - January 2010 / Women, Pakistan