Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Many countries facing the problem of child labor. More than 217 million children
work in different areas such as underground mines, factories, houses, stone cru
shing, working with coal dust, carpet weaving, working with live electric wires,
wool industry, furnaces, fire work explosives and automobile workshops.
The main objective of this article is to determine the seriousness of this issue
in Pakistan: to bring awareness to the society about this forbidding practice o
f misusing human power, and how child labor is affecting the future generation o
f this country.
Child labor in domestic service is very common and acceptable. It may be paid or
unpaid work. It takes place in the home and duties include cleaning, cooking, b
aby sitting and caring among many other small and big chores. Domestic work is p
redominantly the domain of female child laborers. These children work long hours
, do not go to school and many of them are separated from their parents for long
periods of time.
A Rapid Assessment (RA) on child domestic labor by SPARC in Islamabad (Capital)
and four provincial capitals based on selected localities covering 2,492 househo
lds in 2004; reveals that every fourth household in Pakistan employs children fo
r domestic purposes. Majority of these 62 percent were girls. However, there wer
e distinct provincial variations in the prevalence of female child domestic work
ers. In Peshawar and Quetta, the proportion of girls was lower than in Lahore, K
arachi, and Islamabad/Rawalpindi. The KPK and Baluchistan are relatively conserv
ative regions and do not encourage female mobility and employment.
This study is aimed to make the people realize their duty as the citizens of Pak
istan and the responsibility they hold towards the coming generations and to wor
k towards solving the issue of Child Labor, though this issue cannot be solved a
s a whole but if we work as a nation we might be able to improve the current sit
uation and decrease the percentage of child labor in our society.
The National Child Labor Survey, conducted in 1996 by the FBS, showed that out o
f 3.3 million working children, 1.94 million children between the age of 5-14 we
re active in working Punjab, 0.3 million in Sindh, 1.06 million in Khyber Pakhtu
nkhwa and 0.01 million in the Balochistan.
Fassa et al. (1999) opined that child labor can bring negative effects on health
and development of children, as many of those children working in mining or fac
tories are working in hazardous conditions.
It s mainly a problem faced by the developing countries, but it is possible to fin
d child workers in developed countries. According to Ahmed Faisal Imtiaz Siddiqi
, Simple greed, on the part of employers, is one of the key causes of child labor
(Delap 2001).Unscrupulous employers always tempt to take on workers that are eas
iest to exploit. The most defenseless and weakest workers, children, can usually
and easily be paid less than adults and are considerably less likely than adult
s to know their rights or to protest working environment (Basu 1998, Basu 1999).
Poverty, mother of all evils, plays an enormous role in the inception and disse
mination of child labor (Edmonds & Pavcnik 2005). Desperate for money, deprived
families around the world are helpless to push even young children to work to in
crease the family's overall income. For deprived families this diminutive contri
bution of a child's income or support at home that allows the parents to work ca
n make the difference between hunger and a bare sufficiency UNICEF (1997).
Child labor is a serious problem in Pakistan, the age when these children are su
pposed to be in schools seeking education they are working in houses, fields, an
d factories earning a living for their families. A large number of NGOs are runn
ing in Pakistan. They are trying to provide facilities to children who are worki
ng as labor in their small age
CONCLUSION:
The result show that most of the people that are educated are against child labo
r and strongly believe that child labor stops Childs mental growth and diminishe
s their innocence, they are made to work at the age in which the other children
around them are playing and getting education. But it s a bitter reality that even
after taking all the steps and even having seminars and rallies we can t bring th
e issue of child labor to an end, reason being we are a country with more than 5
0% people suffering from poverty and illiteracy, even if they want they don t have
the money to send their children to schools and are forced to make them work fo
r a living. It s a cruel reality but this is the situation faced by most of the po
or countries in the world. The NGO s are a considered to be a helping hand in solv
ing the issue of child labor but only foreign funded NGO s are to bring some posit
ive changes in the society but unfortunately they are at a loss as most of the p
eople doubt the authenticity and credibility of these NGO s and refuse to work for
them and bring a change. To eradicate this issue of Child Labor many laws have
been passed by the Pakistani Government. Even though great efforts are being mad
e by the government but harassment is still affecting the psyche and personality
of the children.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
Awareness must be raised among the people and parents should pay attentions to t
he education of the children.
Child Labor laws should be strictly put into practice.
Primary education should be made compulsory and provided free of cost.
This problem can be resolved by employing the parents and relatives of the effec
ted children.
Government should take concrete steps to eradicate child labor from the society.
Article by Sub lieutenant Taimoor Saleem
SSC (log)2014 B
PN No 9442