Dr. Aliya H. Khan says the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) must be accompanied by an effort to mainstream women into the labour market and secure their rights. “The first thing is that the constitution gives freedom to organize, which is basically trade union activity. This would go into a very long debate, but over the years, especially, after the setting in of the wave of globalization and privatization, there has been a move to make Labor laws more employer friendly rather than employee or worker friendly. And all this is done in the name of simplification, rationalization and consolidation of Labor laws for reducing the cost of doing business. (…) I think if we miss the golden opportunity on mainstreaming women into these economic and export processing zones, we would fail to achieve the true returns from the CPEC investments.”