Sialkot district in Pakistan is a hub of industrial clusters producing sports goods, leather goods and surgical instruments for local and foreign markets. Linked to an increasingly sophisticated global finance and marketing system, the Sialkot labour-intensive business model and production processes are still largely family-owned, cottage-based and informal, relying on a semi-literate, semi-skilled workforce operating in precarious conditions under weak state regulatory mechanisms.
Sialkot industrialists signed the Atlanta Agreement in 1997 to rid the industry of child labour. The other crucial terms and conditions—denial of free association and collective bargaining, low wages, lack of social protection and occupational health and safety—prevalent in the industry were overlooked by all stakeholders (local industrialists, state bodies, international organizations including the ILO, the civil society and the academicians who researched the issue).