Banding together
Rural wages are rising across Asia but Pakistan remains one of the few exceptions. Power shortages plague the factories. Agricultural productivity is stagnant. Landlords are hugely powerful.
Last year, a group of around 40 women struggling to feed and clothe their families on their meagre wages did something almost unheard for poor women working in rural Pakistan - they went on strike. The gamble paid off.
A boy who picks cotton smiles while being photographed along a street.
Women unload cotton blooms plucked from plants to make a bundle.
A man takes notes as cotton is weighed.
Women carry bundles of cotton.
A man sprays pesticides on a cotton field.
A boy carries a bundle of dry cotton plants to use as fuel.
Tangoo, a cotton picker, feeds her family buffaloes outside her home.
Tulsi, a cotton picker, eats boiled rice while sitting in her home.
A pot of milk is covered with a bowl and stored in a hole in wall.
A cotton picker wears pendants, one reads Allah and the other depicts the Hindu deity Hanuman.
Tulsi stands in the doorway of her room.
Utensils sit on a mud shelf adorned with posters of Bollywood film stars.
Seeta rocks her baby in a hammock in her room.
Women cotton pickers sit and listen during a leadership and advocacy skills workshop organised by the Sindh Community Foundation.
Beena Hussain, a trainer, gestures while speaking to women cotton pickers during the workshop.
