The United Nations Children's Fund has won praises from Provincial Minister for Labour and Human Resources Raja Ashfaq Sarwar and his department over a 50-million-rupee assistance to tackle child labour. The assistance is being done through the UN organisation's collaboration with the Provincial Child Labour Survey which is conducted by the Punjab Labour and Human Resources Department, with an Association for Development of Pakistan project at a cost of over Rs 140 million.
The survey, which is being carried out at households, is expected to be completed in 18 months lasting till May 2017. The minister, present in a meeting on Wednesday, was told that the previous survey was conducted in 1996 and there had been a huge increase in number of industrial and commercial units during the past few years which called for an updated, authentic and credible survey with more accurate facts and figures about child labour in the province.
This has prompted the Punjab government to launch a province-wide survey, in partnership with the Board of Statistics, to work out the exact number of child labour. UN Child Protection chief Sarah Coleman said, "The UN organisation will provide all possible financial as well as technical assistance to the Punjab government to eliminate child labour." She also lauded the Punjab government's efforts in various projects to eliminate all forms of child labour, especially in the over-five-billion-rupee "integrated project". Minister Sarwar then told UN representatives about programmes of his department including a Rs 180.832 million project to eliminate the worst form of child labour in Jhelum, Layyah, Jhang and Chakwal and to educate poor children.
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