Another World Day against Child Labour has passed without the implementation of laws that could put an end to the children’s miseries who have lost their childhood in search for bread.
In solidarity with the working children, the Child Rights Movement (CRM) on Wednesday held a peaceful demonstration themed, “Say No to Child Labor in Domestic Work” for World Day against Child Labour Day to show solidarity with demands to the government to immediately ban child domestic labour.
The CRM said that with no national child labour database, international NGOs and donour organisations provide can only estimate underage employment in Pakistan. According to the Intenrational Labour Organisation (ILO), the number of child labourers in Pakistan exceeded 12 million in 2012, whereas the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) estimates that there were ten million underage workers in 2012.
The CRM pointed out that there were approximately 9.86 million working children between the ages of 10 and 19 years in Pakistan; 2.58 million of whom were between 10 and 14 years of age, while thousands more were even younger than 10 years.
According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics Labour Force Survey 2010-11, around 4.29 percent of children aged 10 to 14 years are part of the labour force, which is quite significant given that the survey does not take working children below ten years of age into account. The dire child labour situation in the country is highlighted when we consider that 35.4 percent of 190 million Pakistanis are aged between 0-14 years of age.
Furthermore, Pakistan has the second largest out-of-school child population globally, with 7.26 million children out of school due to poverty in 2012. Of these, female children amount to 4.21 million.
The CRM expressed concern that Pakistan is among countries where child labour is rising, and are especially worried by children employed in hazardous occupations.
Moreover, CRM highlighted that child domestic labor was a highly neglected issue in Pakistan. Such employment is hard to monitor due to its informal nature and labour inspectors are unable to regulate households where underage employees may suffer physical violence, long working hours, dangerous working environment, insufficient food and inappropriate accommodation.
It has been learnt that 9 cases of violence against child domestic workers have surfaced in the past five months, with 5 of these resulting in death.
CRM demanded the newly elected government to put an immediate ban on child domestic labor by putting it on the list of banned occupations provided under the Employment of Child Act (ECA). They also asked that the minimum age of employment be increased from 14 to 16 years to align it with Article 25-A of the constitution which guarantees free education to all children under the age of 16.
