A workshop by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) on child labour was organised at their offices on Thursday, focusing on the rights of children.
Members of civil society organisations and officials of the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) attended the workshop.
In a statement issued after the workshop, the HRCP said Pakistan being a signatory to many international conventions of the rights of children, various ILO conventions and local constitutional and governmental legislations had yet to create an effective implementation and enforcement mechanism.
“Recently, despite some positive measures by the government; provision of educational subsidies, efforts to remove child labour from brick kilns – much remains to be done,” it added.
The HRCP said that a comprehensive survey of child labour needed to be carried out, adding that “unlike earlier survey this should be inclusive of agricultural and domestic workers, who constitute a significant portion of child labour. The survey needs to go beyond basic household data, in capturing actual hubs where child labour is engaged”.
It further said that the Article 25 (A) of the Constitution, the right to education, needed to be implemented in both letter and spirit. “Legislation entailing the registration and documentation of Street children need to be formulated and facilities for their shelter provided. The current state of public education, especially the depleted condition of schools, needs review by the government. The role of public education should be to provide a plausible alternate to child employment,” added the HRCP.
The HRCP further said that the government should be cognisant of the fact that, child labour constituted an integral part of Generalised Scheme of Preference (GSP+) regime and needed to be addressed if economic benefits through trade with the European Union were to be retained.
