NOWSHERA: Around 700 Lady Health Workers (LHWs) staged a protest against non-payment of their salaries for four months and blocked the road at Shobra Chowk on the Grand Trunk Road in Nowshera district on Thursday.

Led by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa coordinator, Samina Bibi, the protesting LHWs, who reached the venue from the far and wide of the district, chanted slogans against the government. Speaking on the occasion, the speakers said they even did not receive the wages for the polio vaccination campaign held nine months ago.

They said the government had not paid them their monthly salary for the last several months. They added that their families were on the verge of starvation. “The children of dozens of LHWs were expelled from their schools due to non-payment of the school fees,” Samina Bibi said.

The LHWs criticised the elected representatives for not raising the issue with the government. They said that hundreds of them were working for the last 14 years but the government was neither providing permanent service structure to the LHWs nor regular monthly salary.

The LHWs asked President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to take note of their plight or else they would intensify their protest. The protesting LHWs dispersed peacefully after talks with the officials. The women health workers have been staging protests in various parts of the KP against non-payment of their salaries for the last several months.

Source: The News

Date:10/21/2011