Life of some children in Pakistan is not easy. Their sole crime is that they are born in a country where children as young as eight years old are working and taking care of entire families. At an age where they should be in school and enjoying the blessings of their childhood, they work well over twelve hours in hazardous work environments.
It has been more than a decade now that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) launched the World Day against Child Labour. Earlier this month Pakistan and rest of the world marked the World Day against Child Labour. In last decade or so not much has changed in Pakistan despite the fact that both the federal and provincial governments have taken some steps to deal with the menace.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) in its report, Global estimates and trends of child labour 2000-2012 says that out of the 264 million children in employment worldwide, 168 million are in child labour. In Pakistan as per the estimates of Child Rights Movement (CRM) 12.5 million children are involved in child labour.
Unfortunately, Pakistan has not conducted the National Child Labour Survey since 1996. The last survey showed that there were 3.3 million between the age of five and fourteen in the workforce. However, recently released annual Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2014-15 provides some help. It reveals that there are 5.24 million children under the age of ten to seventeen working in the various type of employment. It is worth noticing here that the LFS data has some shortcomings; it does not include a significant number of children working on the street in various positions.
Recently the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) organised a seminar on the Elimination of child labour in Pakistan. It appeared at the symposium that despite a significant decline in recorded cases of child labour globally, Pakistan ranks third worldwide in child and forced labour. Figures shared by Director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler), Mr Karamat Ali at the seminar are scary - a four-fold increase in child labour in Pakistan in the past 20 years.
Besides that, according to the figures released in the National Policy on Home-Based Workers, there are 8.52 million home-based workers in Pakistan. Unfortunately, around 6 million of these workers are up to the age of 10 years old.
Some people argue and rationalise the importance of child labour on the basis of poverty. Yes, that might be true in the short-run, but in the long-run the consequences of this problem are very severe and detrimental to the whole society. The theme that child Labour Day followed this year was "End child labour in supply chains - Its everyones business! " This idea is quite important because in developing economies like Pakistan, people justify the practice of child labour because it brings the cost of production down amid growing competition. However, what is being ignored is the fact that these businesses are not only exploiting children but also robbing them of their childhood.
Countries that have been successful in war against child labour have focused on four important points: Proper enforcement of labour laws, quality primary education for everyone, social security to the people and, regular surveys and enhanced monitoring capabilities of regulatory agencies.
Time has come for the government and for the civil society to act now to stop child labour once and for all. Recently, the Punjab Government has taken some steps in the right direction. The Punjab Restriction of Employment of Children Bill 2015 is in principle, approved by the cabinet. Similarly, the Social Protection Authority has started making direct cash transfers to the vulnerable groups. Other provinces and the federal government should follow the suit. At the federal level, the National Commission on the Rights of the Child Bill, which is still pending in the parliament, needs to be approved so that child right violation linked to child labour can be monitored.
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