Global Rights Compliance (GRC) publishes its new report, From Complaint to Redress: Routes to Remedy for Garment Workers in Pakistan.
Garment workers in Pakistan continue to face serious labour rights violations, including wage theft, unsafe working conditions, harassment, and barriers to social protection. While Pakistan has a range of judicial and non-judicial mechanisms intended to address these harms, workers often struggle to access effective remedy in practice.
This report, From Complaint to Redress: Routes to Remedy for Garment Workers in Pakistan, examines why.
Drawing on evidence collected over three years through MyVox, GRC’s community-based monitoring tool and based on findings gathered by Pakistani civil society organisations and trade unions, the report maps the pathways garment workers attempt to navigate when seeking justice and the obstacles that prevent redress.
The report examines the following key state-based and non-state-based judicial and non-judicial grievance mechanisms available to garment workers at both federal and provincial levels:
- Labour courts;
- The Federal Ombudsman’s Secretariat for Protection Against Harassment (FOSPAH);
- The National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR);
- The National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC);
- Provincial labour departments;
- Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms;
- Social protection institutions, including the Employees’ Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI), provincial Social Security Institutions, and the Workers’ Welfare Fund (WWF);
- Company-level Operational Grievance Mechanisms (OGMs);
- Multi-stakeholder initiatives, including Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs), Global Framework Agreements (GFAs) and Community-based mechanisms; and
- Strategic Litigation and International Avenues.
Insights from the report
The challenge in Pakistan is not the absence of remedy mechanisms, but the fragmentation, uneven implementation, and limited accessibility of those that exist. Workers often lack clear information about their rights, are unsure which institution to approach, and face delays, jurisdictional confusion, employer resistance, and fear of retaliation. In addition, the absence of standardised grievance handling approaches across brands, suppliers, and state institutions results in multiple parallel systems that are inconsistent and poorly understood, placing the burden on workers to navigate complex processes with limited support.
At the same time, the report highlights that remedy mechanisms can and do work when they are accessible, properly resourced, and supported by worker organisations. Provincial Labour Departments, labour courts, the Ombudsperson, and social protection institutions have delivered meaningful outcomes in individual cases, particularly when workers are supported by trade unions (TUs) or civil society organisations (CSOs).
The findings also show that labour rights violations are often systemic and overlapping, meaning workers may experience wage violations, harassment, and restrictions on freedom of association simultaneously. This underscores why remedy systems cannot operate in silos or rely solely on formal legal procedures.
Key Findings
- While many state-based mechanisms face capacity constraints and delays, Labour Departments can serve as an effective entry point to remedy due to their provincial presence and ability to facilitate negotiated outcomes.
- ADR mechanisms have gained traction in recent years, offering a less adversarial and more accessible pathway for workers.
- For workplace harassment cases, FOSPAH stands out as a relatively efficient model. However, the report argues that expanding the mandate of Labour Departments to address harassment complaints would better reflect workers’ lived realities, where multiple rights violations often occur together.
- TUs remain one of the most effective entry points to remedy, yet workers continue to face obstacles in forming and joining unions. Strengthening freedom of association is therefore central to strengthening access to remedy.
Recommendations
The report provides practical recommendations for both Pakistani policymakers and companies/brands sourcing from Pakistan, aimed at strengthening existing remediation pathways rather than creating new ones.
For Pakistani policymakers, key recommendations include:
- Prioritising access to remedy in the next National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights (NAP-BHR), with measurable targets and timelines
- Strengthening coordination between federal and provincial labour institutions through minimum national standards on inspections, complaint handling, and remedies
- Improving transparency through public reporting on grievance outcomes, including disaggregated data by gender, sector, and type of violation
- Strengthening and institutionalising ADR and mediation mechanisms to complement judicial processes
- Establishing oversight to ensure workplace Anti-Harassment Committees are functioning in factories
- Ratifying key ILO conventions, including those on occupational safety and health and social security minimum standards
- Expanding Labour Departments’ mandates, capacity, outreach, and complaint-handling procedures, including enabling them to address harassment cases
- Improving worker access to social protection systems such as EOBI, including through digitisation, transparency tools, and reduced processing delays
For companies and international brands, the report highlights that brands have significant leverage over labour conditions in supply chains, and recommends that companies:
- Recognise and engage with worker-led and union-supported grievance processes, including those outside factory-level systems
- Move toward worker-driven grievance mechanisms, designed and governed with workers and unions
- Use purchasing practices to support remediation, including price adjustments or advance payments when needed
- Use leverage transparently, including requiring suppliers to issue appointment letters, recognise unions, and cooperate with State-based mechanisms
- Contribute to safety upgrades and support effective inspection systems
- Publicly disclose how leverage has been used to resolve labour disputes, improving accountability
- For brands sourcing from the same supplier(s), coordinate factory-level remediation efforts (e.g. through joint grievance mechanisms operated by independent third parties).
Read the full report.