Dozens of steel mills and furnaces in the Bara area of Khyber District are currently the only source of livelihood for hundreds of poor families, but the lives of the workers working here are in grave danger due to lack of safety measures.
According to Pakhtun Digital correspondent due to the lack of safety measures by the mill owners and the silence of the local administration, poor workers are becoming victims of accidents every day. The workers working in these factories do not have any proper protective clothing nor are they provided with helmets or other necessary safety equipment, due to which incidents of burning the hands, feet and faces of the workers working in front of the extremely hot furnaces have become common.
This situation is not limited to accidents only, but the dilapidated condition of the machinery here is also a major risk. Most of the furnaces are very old and substandard, due to lack of timely maintenance, sudden explosions occur in them or molten iron splashes fly out, seriously injuring the workers.
Apart from this, due to the emission of toxic gases and poor ventilation system inside the factories, the workers are suffering from various respiratory and skin diseases. The process of industrialization has started in the tribal districts of Khyber, but the implementation of labor laws and industrial safety ordinances is non-existent here, which gives the owners the opportunity to do as they please.
Most of the workers are forced to do this work by risking their lives due to extreme poverty. These workers do not have any medical insurance and do not get any compensation in case of an accident. When a worker becomes disabled or loses his life due to an accident, his entire family becomes dependent on Naan Shabina. Some actions were taken by the local administration in the past, but due to the lack of any lasting policy regarding the health and safety of the workers, the situation remains the same.
Now the government needs to immediately start the process of labor inspection in these steel mills of Bara, make the use of safety equipment mandatory, and ensure the registration of every worker so that in case of any untoward incident, they can get legal protection and compensation. If this serious situation is not taken notice of, this series of loss of lives of poor workers will continue in the same way.
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