Child Labour ratio risen up on 12.9 M in Pakistan 

By: Sidra Arif

    Lahore: About 12.5 million children under-aged 6-14 are working as child laborer’s and active in hazardous work in Pakistan. These poor children are living their lives below poverty line and are forced to earn for their families. These children are mostly hired by highly educated and upper-class people on cheaper labor because they are easily controlled and threatened.

A very heart wrenching moment captured of a minor working in a brick kiln in scorching heat 

 Pakistan is a developing country and facing many social issues like poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, corruption, over-population, inflation and one of the most hazardous issues among all is “Child labour”; though it is a major issue in all over world but in Pakistan Child labor has grown to the maximum level.

Millions of children in the age group of 6 to 14 years are involved in child labor in Pakistan.

An under -aged child starving his dreams to feed his an family's hunger

    Children work in almost every economic sector, such as carpet weaving, tanneries, roadsides restaurants and hotels, domestic help, factories, brick kilns, bangle making and in clandestine factories, where they are forced to do dangerous work which leads those children towards many problems leaving them mentally, physically, morally deprived. Officially children make up about seven percent of the total workforce.  The main factors behind the child labour are poverty and lack of education because working from an early age blocks their ways to go to the schools and cut them off to get the basic education restricting their ways from health care and other fundamental rights which is not only a threat to them and their future but also for country and its growth in future.

Child labor around the world is nothing new. AJ+ meets three children who have their own reasons for being young and on the job. How would you solve child labor without hurting the economic situation of families?

 

An under aged child working at worksop to meet the expenses of his family 

    Convention on Minimum Age No 138 was adopted by International Labor Organization (ILO) on June 26, 1973, setting forth a larger framework for the longer-term objectives of the effective abolition of child labor. Pakistan is the latest member to have ratified the Convention No. 138 on July6, 2006, becoming the 147^th country to do so.  Pakistan as a charter member of UN has banned hazardous labour under age 14 years of age. Even domestic work is hazardous for a child aged less than 10 years.

  By ratifying the convention, Pakistan has committed to take immediate action to reduce the number of child laborers and eventually eliminates child labor from Pakistan.

Punjab took the lead in passing the Domestic Workers Act, 2019, banning children younger than 15 years from working as domestic help while allowing those between 15 and 18 years to only engage in light work.

 According to Article 11(3) of the Constitution: “No child below the age of 14 years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment”. Besides, Article 25(A) states: “The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to 16 years in such manner as determined by law. UNICEF has estimated that approximately one million children work in carpet industry and that many of these children started working there when they were under 10 years old. One of the worst kinds of child labor is domestic labor; mainly it is hidden away and not regulated by the government. It has two ends. One end is lower class people, living their life under poverty line, who send their children to work ranging from commercial fields to domestic help at very early age for the sake of little amount of money so that they can support their families and the other end is the people, belonging to the upper class, the most educated and civilized people even having a view of children's fundamental rights. 

And yet, despite all these laws, millions of Pakistani children are working as domestic help day and night. Living in Pakistan sometimes makes you think laws are not made to be followed. The tragic stories of Zohra Shah, Tayyaba and Kinza are painful examples.

In the solidarity of child girl zahra shah who was brutally murder at Rawalpindi

    Another industry in which many children are involved is the surgical tool industry. The children experience many terrible things in this industry including burns, respiratory illness, and carpel tunnel syndrome. We need to make change, and to make change, we need to act. We as a nation need to take the step to end this curse from its roots. We need to work from shoulder to shoulder by involving governments, political leaders, influencers, businesses stakeholders and citizens to share their responsibility and become part of the solution and to build a progressive future for our children and country.

A beautiful shot of school girls depicting a healthy and happy life for them and country 

 We need to fight against those two ends, which are involved in this activity, including parents of children and the educated citizen of higher class, by educating and creating awareness to the parents about children basic right to education, their carefree life, basic health facilities as well as making them aware of their rights, laws and legislation and ensuring them to provide platforms where they can raise their voice for their children.

A beautiful art in solidarity to say no to child labour 

Also, as responsible members of society our mission should be to fight against this modern slavery of children by keeping them for domestic help by upper class, educated and well-aware people of society who hire those underage children and make them work for their household chores, sometimes subjected to violence, and abuse. We aim to end this hypocrisy by making them aware of children’s rights and laws.We should also aim to provide platforms to parents of such children who have survived or have been victim of such any unpleasant incident and assure them to listen their problems. All children should get a good quality education that is surely a step forward to a better future and life. Our mission should be to provide all children equinely an easy access to health education and basic human rights without any hinders and barriers.

“The change starts within each one of us, and ends only when all children are free to be children"- Craig Kielburger

With this message we need to promise to end this social curse from its roots to build a healthy, prosperous, and bright future for our children and country.

Written and produced: Sidra Arif

M.phil Scholar, Media Studies,

Kinnaird College for women university, Lahore.