The women building Pakistan’s date trade

Pakistan is known as one of the leading date-growing and exporting countries in the world, as per the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, and a large chunk of these dates come from the Khairpur District in northern Sindh.

In fact, as per one estimate, the district produces 700,000 tons of dates annually, which account for 40% of the total production in the country.

Khairpur’s dates are famously known as the “golden crop”, and provide employment opportunities to a large number of locals in the area, especially women. The jobs include, harvesting, cleaning the crop, separating, making baskets and drying of dates, a process that is known locally as “chuhar”.

The women working in the date-growing farms are daily wagers and can earn between Rs10,000 to Rs15,000 a month. It is primarily for the income that many families from surrounding areas migrate to Khairpur once a year to harvest the crop.

Pervezan, 45, belongs to the Ghauspur area of the Kashmore district, which is about 250 kilometres from Khairpur. The mother of eight has been coming with her family to the district every year in July for the last 20 years.

Her husband has a disability and cannot work, which is why Pervezan works eight hours a day to earn for her family.

“Each year, we set up a makeshift house in the Therhi area which is easily accessible from the date farm,” she tells Geo.tv, “The work of harvesting and cleaning the dates starts from early morning and lasts till noon.”

Pervezan has been working to save enough money to build a house back in her village. “Most people look down upon me and my children for doing this kind of job, but there is no shame in working hard,” she said.