Unemployment, poverty and lack of education is compelling parents to send their children to work and due to lack of implementation of labour laws and related children rights is causing increase in violence and torture on domestic child workers day by day.
This was stated by Zia Ahmed Awan, Project Co-ordinator Madadgaar Helpline and President of Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) in a press conference at the Madadgaar Helpline Office here on Monday. He said that forcing underage children to work is a crime and not only the employers, but also the parents who wilfully send their children to work are responsible for miseries on the domestic child workers.
Zia Ahmed Awan said violence and torture on domestic child workers is a blatant violation of the rights of children and the government must take immediate action to stop these shameful crimes. While demanding strict implementation of the labour laws and children rights he said the government should chalk-out people-friendly policies, with more allocations towards jobs, education, health and social security so that the curse of child labour could be ended from our country.
He said poverty and illiteracy are compelling hundreds of thousands of poor families to send their children to work instead of school. The number of street children in Pakistan is constantly swelling and hundreds of thousands of children are engaged in forced child labour, he added.
A victim of physical abuse on 14-year-old domestic worker Zaffar was also present with his father at the press conference. His father Muhammad Yaseen told that his son used to work in the house in Clifton and his employer Sobia and her husband Muhammad Ali inhumanely beat up his son regularly. They put Zaffar in chains and detained him in bathroom, he added.
He said a week before during such a spree of torture a neighbour informed Darkhishan Police who raided the house and recovered Zaffar from the illegal detention and arrested Sobia. While Sobia is now out on bail and they wants to implicit young Zaffar in a fake theft case, he added.
He demanded the government to take a serious notice of the case and take strict action against the accused. He also demanded the protection for Zaffar and his family. While talking to Business Recorder after press conference Zaffar said that Sobia used to force him to steal items from grocery stores and when he refused to commit crime she started torturing her with his husband. I never stolen any single thing from anywhere, he added.
He said that when his father went to take him back Sobia demanded Rs 100000 as release money. Timely intervention of some neighbour made his recovery possible from illegal detention, he added. According to the Database of Madadgaar Helpline this year from January to November at least 728 cases of murders of children have been reported so far, while 604 other children were injured. Two hundred thirty nine children were raped while 124 were sodomized. As many as 112 children braved sexual assault, and 417 faced torture.
One hundred forty three children were trafficked, while 323 went missing. As many as 183 kids committed suicide, while 74 cases of Karo-kari of children were also reported. Seven hundred and thirteen children were kidnapped, while the number of forced marriages and Vani cases of children remained 113, and 29, respectively. Overall 3802 cases of violence against children have been reported this year so far in the country. The province-wise breakdown of child abuse cases this year 1153 cases were reported from Sindh, 1736 from Punjab, 630 from Khyber-Pakhtunkhuwa and 283 cases from Balochistan.
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