Islamabad [Pakistan], February 12 : Pakistan's media industry has been grappling with significant financial challenges, leading to widespread salary delays and, in some cases, non-payment.
This crisis has adversely affected journalists' livelihoods and the overall health of the media sector.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has expressed grave concern over the ongoing issue of unpaid dues for media personnel employed by Bol Network.
In a post on X, the commission stated, "HRCP is greatly concerned by reports from the Karachi union of journalists that 375 media personnel, earlier employed by Bol Network, have still not received their outstanding dues despite repeated directions from PEMRA since August 2024 to settle all such payments. Some have waited as long as nine years for their arrears to be paid."
The HRCP has pointed out that the right to fair and timely wages is enshrined in Pakistan's labour laws, and failure to uphold this right reflects poorly on the country's commitment to protecting workers' interests. The HRCP emphasised that such instances of non-payment have become unfortunately common within the media industry, posing a threat to the standard of journalism.
HRCP stated, "While the right to receive fair wages and on time is protected under the country's labour laws, such instances have become regrettably common in the media - to the detriment of journalistic standards. The Bol News management and all other media houses that have withheld current and former employees' payments must settle all dues immediately".
In December of last year, a parliamentary panel urged the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) to ensure that media houses provide their employees with a minimum monthly salary of Pakistani Rupees (PKR) 37,500, as reported by Dawn.
According to the report, the sub-committee of the National Assembly's standing committee on information and broadcasting had proposed measures to safeguard the rights of media workers, including halting advertisements to media houses in case of non-compliance, expanding the number of Implementation Tribunals for Newspaper Employees (ITNE) to five, and abolishing third-party contracts in media organisations.