Significant features of child labour

In the context of the International Labour Organisation's fight against child labour, new terms and idioms have developed to describe this practice now condemned all over the world, particularly in categorising its various forms. One of the most important is "Worst forms of child labour," and this is very significant where the anti-child labour campaign in Pakistan is concerned.
Let me state at the very outset that ILO is not ready to condone any employment of children under 18 years of age in any work that falls under the worst forms of labour.
Under its direction, the Pakistan Ministry of Labour and the provincial department of labour, in conjunction with representatives of workers and employers associations and concerned NGOs, have drawn up a national list of hazardous forms of child labour for the whole of Pakistan which is a useful guideline for the employers.
Those doing voluntary work in this field would do well to acquaint themselves with the list. In fact since all newspapers are willingly assisting in the government's and ILO's campaign against child labour, the list would be helpful for their reporters who frequently file stories on the subject as also for their Press photographers.
It is a rather long list and this article would lose its utility if I were to reproduce it, so I will confine myself to its significant features as that would give the readers a fair idea of how the mind of ILO works in determining the worst forms of labour and really hazardous occupations.
No youngster under 18 years of age can be sent into underground mines and exposed to the dangers of blasting and even assist in such work. Work with power-driven cutting machinery is taboo for them, as it works with electrical wires over 50 kv.
In Kasur I am told many children are made to work in processes connected with the tanning industry, which is not allowed, nor is coming into contact with pesticides and acids and any toxic of explosive chemicals. The complete list of such substances is very clear and exhaustive. Children may not do any labour that exposes them to cement dust, coal dust, marble dust and silica (sand) dust, because their inhalation can cause dangerous diseases of the lungs and the eyes, nor will their involvement in manufacture and sale of fireworks (explosives) be tolerated.
There are frequent accidents in this work which have taken valuable lives. Similarly children are not permitted to do work in the proximity of glass and metal furnaces or undertake jobs in cloth printing, dyeing and finishing. They will not be made to go inside sewer pipelines or storage tanks, nor will their person be exposed to the stone-crushing process that is going on all the time in low hilly areas.
Another important feature of the banned list is something that rarely occurs to employers and even to observers - no child will be expected to lift or carry heavy weights which is a frequent part of most jobs connected with the transport industry. You must have seen little boys carrying heavy axles of motor vehicles or other weighty parts of car engines in automobile workshops.
The limit is 15 kilograms, and nothing above that. Those who have drawn up the list have thought of everything. Readers will be interested to know that, under the law, no child can be made to work in night hours, ie from 10 pm to 8. am. This was quite prevalent in small hotel industry, particularly in roadside eating places where vehicular traffic travelling late into the night halted for refreshments.
Another work that is not allowed is anything that takes place two meteres above the floor, for fear of dizziness and possible fall. One industry using small children that has always been in the limelight from day one, and with which every newspaper reader is acquainted by now is the manual carpet weaving industry.
Actually this is the work that first drew critical world attention to employment of child labour in Pakistan and made the Pakistan government come down heavily on those responsible for it. Needless to say it is no longer tolerated.
Other jobs that are taboo for children under 18 are scavenging (even hospital waste), tobacco manufacture, ship-breaking (very popular on the Arabia Sea coast), surgical instruments manufacture, work on glass furnaces for bangle-making, spice-grinding (again for fear of inhalation) and work in a boiler house.
People want to know if the much-publicised domestic work is also a worst form of child labour. It is one of the worst forms because it has potential for physical and sexual exploitation of boys and girls, and, more importantly, because it deprives them of education.
It may be mentioned that domestic work done by children within their own family lives outside the scope of ILO standards, because it is usually regarded as part of their normal development and teaches them domestic skills which they all need to know.
In the rural areas particularly if a child was not to undertake any such work, he or she would grow up to be useless in the economy of the village.
For the information of readers it is useful to know that all the above rules and permissions and prohibitions are regulated by two conventions of ILO. Conventions No 138 and 182, to which Pakistan is a signatory and has voluntarily agreed to subscribe to the limitations imposed by them.
There is now hardly any country in the world which has failed to do so . Pakistan has ratified C 138.
Let me conclude this article by reminding readers that in the noble work of keeping children safe from hazards, every one of us has to contribute in whatever way we can. The official concerns of ILO and the government apart, children are the collective responsibility of the society, in fact of the entire nation, and this responsibility gets spread over all individuals whatever their walk of life.
Let each one of us always keep this reality in mind.