ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Prime Minister Imran Khan has urged the World Community to formulate a combined strategy to protect the vulnerable segments of the society especially the laborers from the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic.
While addressing an online ILO Global Summit on COVID-19 and the World of Work, the prime minister pointed out that many Countries including Pakistan depend upon remittances sent by the overseas workers.
The prime minister said that though the host Countries are also faced with many problems due to the Coronavirus, yet we need to convince them to be more sympathetic to these laborers.
Imran Khan emphasized that the lockdown has hit the Labor Community the most. He said that the future is very uncertain as we do not know how long the economy will take to recover from the impacts of the pandemic.
The prime minister said that we are praying that vaccines come out as a cure to the virus but in the meantime, we need to share our experiences and exchange ideas to protect our vulnerable groups.
Sharing the initial lockdown experience of Pakistan, he said that it rendered our daily wage workers and laborers unemployed.
Hence, he said we came up with the smart lockdown idea under which public gatherings were stopped but we allowed other activities like reopening of construction and agriculture sectors.
Imran Khan said that the Pakistani government provided cash assistance to the laborers under the Ehsaas Program after completing their registration process.
The prime minister said that it was the first time in Pakistan’s history that such huge money was disbursed in such a short space of time.
