FAISALABAD – The Child Rights Committee (CRC) Faisalabad has announced to compile a database on child labour that will provide vital guidelines to draw out a strategy to fight the menace.
As a first step, the CRC members and volunteers will identify the statistics of child labour at union council level. The announcement was made by CRC Deputy Coordinator Mujahid Gilani advocate at the monthly meeting of the committee held at District Council Faisalabad chaired by chief coordinator and child rights campaigner, Sardar Iftikhar.
The CRC is a social welfare organisation working in coordination with Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) that has its offices in Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, Peshawar, Hyderabad and Quetta.
Mujahid Gilani said the SPARC had been instrumental in introducing the concept of child rights and had raised the issues that were previously not part of the national debate.
“From the forum of CRC we are endeavoring to carry forward the vision to create a world around us in which children are valued and empowered and their rights promoted and protected. We at the CRC focus to promote and protect the rights of the child to empower children within the framework of recognised standards through advocacy, research, awareness, outreach activities, human development and institutional capacity building,” he said.
Mujahid Gilani also gave a follow-up report of a number of court cases involving the child abuse. Speaking on the proposed database, CRC member Naseem Anthony said this was a very extensive work that would take at least six months more. He suggested that the survey must start from the slum areas of urban population. “Child labour is the problem of every developing and poor country,” he said.
“The situation of child labour in Pakistan is not good and the number of child labourers in Pakistan is increasing fast. Although Pakistan child labour laws are in place but no body is acting on them owing to poverty, corruption and lack of planning,” he said.
It is significant to note that the surveys carried out by various NGOs fighting for children’s rights in Pakistan say that over 21 million child labourers aged between 10-14 years are working in the country out of whom 73 per cent are boys and 27 per cent girls. However, the recent socio-economic conditions indicate that the actual figures are much higher.
The situation is worst in rural areas where those child labourers work without any compensation or wages and their masters only provide them with shelter and food. The basic reasons for child labour in Pakistan are poverty and ignorance.
In a country where more than 50 percent people live below the poverty line it is very difficult to completely eradicate the menace of child labour. Sardar Iftikhar presented a pamphlet titled “Education imparted with affection has deeper influence” that was based on SPARC’s total rejection of physical punishment in schools.
He defined the various modes of punishment and their objectives and recommended a number of alternative steps to achieve the desired results. He stressed the need to have a reorientation to the role of institutions, parents and teachers to reduce the rate of school dropouts. Senior member and renowned children and women rights campaigner, Kaneez Ishaq, presented her report on two cases in which children were adopted by their foster parents.
The other members also shared their experiences on the rehabilitation of individual cases of children in need. She appreciated the role of Nigehban, a welfare home for homeless children and Child Protection Bureau (CPB), a social welfare government organisation. Briefing on the future programmes, Sardar Iftikhar said the committee was going to form a regional parliament of children that will finally depute 20 children to represent Faisalabad in Children Parliament in Islamabad.
He also announced that the committee was supposed to visit a number of slum areas in the city to get the firsthand knowledge of the problems faced by children there.
