The Punjab Labour and Human Resource and the Education and Literacy Departments have begun enrolling out-of-school children of brick-kiln workers in the province under the school enrolment campaign for brick-kiln Children, which was launched this August.
"The Punjab government has launched various educational and rehabilitation programmes to improve the living standards of brick-kiln workers by educating their children and supporting them financially," Provincial Minister for Labour and Human Resource Raja Ashfaq Sarwar said in a meeting on Wednesday to review the campaign progress.
The meeting was told that around 1,566 children from Faisalabad, 715 from Lahore, 268 from Nankana Sahib, 937 from Gujrat, 187 from Chiniot while more than 15 children from Rahim Yar Khan were enrolled in public schools. "Over 5,592 children of four selected districts are receiving non-formal education by the Labour Department under the elimination of bounded labour in Brick Kilns Project. Nearly 1003 children in Gujrat, 1,566 in Faisalabad, 1,538 in Sargodha while 1485 children in Bahawalpur are receiving free education," the minister claimed.
A survey claims that there are 170,293 brick-kiln workers at 6,000 brick kilns in the province while their 7,540 children are getting free education via different educational schemes. "The Labour Department is also planning to start a comprehensive survey of child labour in 10 selected districts of the Punjab through the Board of Statistics to identify the actual figure of bonded and child labour," he added.