Written By: Aukash Thakur
Pakistan is one such country that is trapped around various social, economic, and political issues.
The biggest issue right now in the country is child labor. There are approximately 11 million Pakistani children, who are a target of child labor. The lives of these children are ruined as their right to education and to living a decent childhood is snatched away from them and now the only purpose of their life is to do domestic work or labor in the agriculture and brick industry. In this country, about 31% of women are married before the mature age of 18.
The percentage of children working under the age of 5 to 14 in the province of Punjab and Sindh are 12.4% and 21.5%. These stats can be confirmed by viewing this link: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/pakistan.
The activities, which indulge in child labor
Working in the clothing industry
- Domestic workers
- Working in the glass industry
- Hired in the construction sector
- Employed in the agriculture sector
- Employed for manufacturing of surgical instruments
- Working in hotels and restaurants
- Employed at gas stations and automobile repair shops
- Hired for producing and trafficking drugs.
- Forcibly Recruited by Militant groups in doing terrorist activities such as mass killings, suicide attack and etc.
Major reasons for child Labour in Pakistan.
- The main reason behind Pakistan’s biggest problem, Child labour, is poverty. In Pakistan, there are not a lot of job opportunities available and even if a job is available, then the salary offered is not of a good amount as compared to the inflation rate in Pakistan. Due to the high poverty rate in Pakistan, most children have to leave their education and go out to find work, to support their families. Big firms take advantage of these children, as they pay them very less and invest the rest of their money in other departments in their business.
- Due to the pressure of poverty in Pakistan, about 90% of 170000 street children in Pakistan are involved in the sex trade, which is a very extreme form of child labor. An act was passed by the government of Pakistan in 2018, which prevents the trafficking of persons. Also, a migrant act was passed in 2018, which protects the victims who were smuggled to other countries by traffickers.
- A big reason for the increasing trend of child labor in Pakistan is that the people in villages are not given any concept of population control, due to which they end up creating a large family. Thus children of these families are encouraged/forced to leave to their education and start working at a very early age, as expenses of such big families cannot be managed by just one working person within a family.
- Another big reason for child labor in Pakistan is that a big majority of children start working at an early age because either their parents have passed away or one or both of their parents are suffering from deadly diseases such as T.B, HIV, AIDS, etc. Thus such children become a target of child labor as they become the only source of earning in such a family.
- The percentage of child labor keeps increasing in Pakistan because, in the majority of rural areas within the country, inadequate facilities are provided regarding the education of children in these areas. There are no books provided by the state for the education of such children and the teachers, who are hired for the education of these children, are most of the time absent from these schools.
- There is very less attention given to the child labor issue by various political heads. Although there are many laws created against child labor by the government of Pakistan, which can be viewed at https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/resources/reports/child-labor/pakistan, still these have no properly applied anywhere in the country, The police department of Pakistan also doesn’t participate in reducing the percentage of child labor in the country.
Effects of child labor
- Children who do domestic work, are the target of various sorts of assaults such as physical, sexual, and mental assault such as getting beaten up badly by their employers, left to starve for a good amount of time, getting called names, which could destroy the worker’s self-esteem and in some extreme cases, the workers can get raped daily.
- Zohra shah was a victim of physical abuse. She was an 8-year-old girl, who worked as a domestic worker in Rawalpindi. One day, she accidentally opened the cage, where parrots were kept and they flew away. Due to this, the employer of Zohra, abused her physically to such an extreme point that she died of it. To get full details of this incident, visit this link : https://www.dawn.com/news/1561041
- Children, who start working at an early age, tend to develop serious health problems such respiratory problems and eyesight problems, at a very early stage in their life, as they work in such poor conditions, where they come in contact with hefty amounts of dust daily. An example of such environment is the carpet industry, where the 90 %( confirmed by a UNICEF report) workforce are children between the age of 5 to 14 and they work 20 hours a day for 7 days a week under extremely dusty conditions.
- The dreams of a child, who started working at a very young of 5, of becoming a successful and educated person are completely shattered as now they have given work priority over their education so that they could become a helping hand in supporting their families.
- The children, who either are abducted or forced to work in the drug industry, tend to get addicted to many lethal drugs such as heroin, cocaine and other drugs overtime and destroy their beautiful lives. Many times it has been reported that children who become big addicts of such drugs have lost their lives at an early age due to overdose of these drugs.
- Children, who stay away from their families for a long time due to their work, start to feel neglected emotionally as they do not receive the love and affection that a family provides, due to this reason the child feels lonely and depressed. In extreme cases of loneliness and depression, such children decide to end their lives by committing the act of suicide.
Conclusion
The government of Pakistan needs to implement the laws that they have created regarding Pakistan’s biggest problem, Child labour and the person who does not adhere by these laws should be given severe punishment, otherwise, the situation could worsen with each passing year and we would lose children, who could have become geniuses in the future if they were provided just a single chance. Just im
