Daniele Gussago fotografia di reportage e fotogiornalismo.

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The courage of the desert

The Youth of Bucharest

From dance a challenge to the wheel chair

Working in Pakistan

A trip among workers in Pakistan. In Pakistan it is usual to begin working at a very early age, too early according to our standards. The first step is usually at brick-producing furnaces. Chimney stacks can be seen everywhere on the road from Islamabad to Peshawar. The clay soil of the large plains is there, readily available for anyone who is desperate enough to use it to make bricks. From the countryside to the city, they work in small carpenter’s workshops. Dark rooms, little air moved by fans. Child labour is used here also. The contribution of child labour is extremely important to the domestic economy, the single income of the head of the household is not enough. Women are confined to the home and cannot contribute in any substantial way. Therefore, work comes first, then school, when this is possible at all. Quarries and mines are areas traditionally associated with hard, dangerous work. These areas are often isolated, far from inhabited centres.  Workers are forced to live nearby, in temporary settlements. Some western companies invest in Pakistan because of the obvious advantages offered by cheap labour. The products are destined exclusively for export. We see hand-sewn balls with the logos of well-known teams, even Italian teams.  Leather jackets are manufactured here, unthinkable for use in the Pakistani climate. Cigarettes are produced for the internal market. From tobacco leaves to cartons of packets.  American technology, they say proudly. A positive aspect of globalisation: decent working environments are possible even here. In the Pakistani labour market a new entity is arising, also imported from the West: trade unions. This is mostly still unknown, especially among small businessmen and artisans. We are at the beginning; in Pakistan trade unions have “80.000 members” in a population of over 170 million inhabitants. Some categories, farmers, for example cannot join trade unions by law. Land owners are powerful, more so than industrialists. The work of ISCOS-CISL is that of spreading the idea of a trade-union, helping the small group of very motivated and brave people that are creating trade unions in order to improve the condition of the workers. A difficult attempt at modernising a society that is, in many respects, regressing and suffering from a growing haemorrhage of its labour force.

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