Pakistan is a sixth largest populated developing country of south Asia. Its economy is predominantly an agricultural based with vast & huge land holdings and a significant portion of the populace living under poverty line. There is greater sense of alienation among different religious and cultural minorities/ ethnic groups. The political culture is hegemonic with a complex and deep-rooted monopoly of elites on the political and economic horizon. The industrial base, which remained local need, based and controlled confronted greater challenges and obstacles at the advent of globalization and technological advancement. The human resource situation is shamefully lowest in south Asia. The vast human resource remained neglected and oppressed appears one of the main impediments in the rapid industrialization, which other developing countries witnessed, in recent years.

Women in Pakistan, which accounts for more than fifty per cent of the total population, are culturally and economically most oppressed and neglected section of the society, which is predominantly, rural based. Their vast illiterate and uncounted majority has no access to fundamental human rights. The orthodox and conservative nature of the society placed greater restrictions and they are out of mainstream social & economic spectrum. The Women workers in industrial set up are most oppressed; as they are victims of cultural segregation, state apathy/ negligence and poor human resource base. Their share in regular industrial sector is insignificant but they have significant representation in unregistered and unregulated small & medium cottage industry.

Pakistan is largest textile exporter in the world and its textile exports accounts for the more than 65% of total exports during recent years. The textile made ups like clothing & stitching sectors have highest level of women labor force but the working conditions in these sub sectors of the textile industry are highly gender biased and oppressive as the women wages are lower, working conditions are nonconductive, non access to globally accepted working norms and temporary/ causal nature of employment.

Harmony Foundation a nationally recognized rights based organization has been striving for the gender rights of working women and Pakistani textile sector has remained its major focus. It has been collaborating with other national & international organizations/ institutions for the mainstreaming of women labor force. It launched & executed different capacity building & mobilization projects through out Pakistan since its inception. The formulation and execution of this detailed integrated research study on the condition working women in textile industry in Pakistan is one of greatest contribution for its main goal of women mainstreaming and egalitarian society. The first chapter of this particular research has elaborated the political economy of the Pakistani state and role of different stakeholders in its development. The second chapter briefly explains the research methodology for this peculiar research and the subsequent chapter presents the general data about textile industry and condition of labor force though a major focus has been on the women workers. The fourth & fifth chapters exclusively deal with gender issues of working women and the level and intensity of gender rights violations and abuses in textile industry. This particular research has designed to be an issue based and action oriented and requires critical analysis from policy makers, national & international organization/ institutions, global & local advocacy and pressure groups and most importantly the new emerging viable broad based civil society.