Speakers at a seminar on child labour held in the federal capital have warned of an increasing incidence of child labour in Pakistan even though the global efforts successfully continue to stamp out the worst forms of the menace of child labour by 2016. The warning was sounded during a 'National Media Seminar Against Worst Form of Child Labour', organised by International Labour Organisation (ILO) in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Speaking on the occasion, Donglin Li, Country Director of the ILO, also underscored efforts to involve the general public, the media and the policy makers to raise a wall of opposition to child labour. "It is important for all of us to initiate large-scale educational programmes to rehabilitate child labourers and for the government to strengthen its institutional mechanisms to better co-ordinate its policy and programme level action on child labour," he said.
He appreciated the success achieved so far in cleaning the soccer ball industry in Sialkot from the scourge of child labour as well as success in rehabilitating more than 100,000 child labourers across Pakistan from the sector of carpet weaving, glass bangles, domestic labour, coal mines, deep sea fishing, auto-workshops, brick kiln, rag-picker and leather tanning.
He hoped Pakistan's media, which had witnessed a boom and extended its reach to the far and wide of the country in recent years would also come forward and play a front-line role in educating people and mobilising social action to fight child labour. Earlier, the participants were told there were over 21 million child labourers between the age group of 10 to 14 years working in the country according to recent surveys, almost double the number as estimated by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in 2005.
Awards were also awarded to journalists including Shiraz Mehmood Pathan, Mohammad Sajjad, Malik Shafiq Awan, Gonila Gill, Sohail Rashid, Beenish Javed, Javeria Siddique, Zafar Sindho who contributed to highlight issues of child labour.-PR