World Day against Child Labour observed

'The World Day against Child Labour 2006' was observed in Pakistan like rest of the world on June 12, with a renewed pledge that all out efforts will continue to be made for elimination of child labour.
Human rights activists told Business Recorder, here on Monday that despite the Pakistan government's ratification in 2003 to ban child labour in 29 hazardous professions, the country has yet to make this ratification a part of its statutes.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) in collaboration with provincial governments conducted a survey to highlight 29 hazardous professions including tanneries, coal mining, manufacturing and sale of firework explosives, work at the compressed natural gas and liquid petroleum gas cylinders work, work on glass and metal furnaces, cloth printing dying and finishing sections and other labours.
According to the Employment of Children Act 1991, the government was empowered to declare any form of profession as hazardous and ban for child labour.
According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), there are around nine million child labourers in Pakistan.
Unfortunately, human rights activists said, no survey was conducted to count child labourers after 1996. In 1996, the number of child labourers in Pakistan was 3.3 million, including 1.9 million in Punjab whereas 60 percent child labour was involved in the agriculture sector.
ILO estimated that more girls worked in domestic labour than in any other sector. Children often work under constant threat of physical or sexual abuse.
Various surveys have revealed that only 20 percent child labour is due to poverty while other significant reasons are dearth of skill learning opportunities, market irrelevance of education and lack of awareness.
Speakers at a function held here on Monday said that the complex socio-economic issue of child labour couldn't be addressed successfully without undertaking efforts for women development simultaneously.
"While worst forms of child labour are totally unacceptable as these expose children to hazards and harm their heath. Child labour could be eliminated in phased and gradual manner while addressing the socioeconomic imperatives of child labour", they said.
Moreover, experts told this scribe that an estimated 246 million children are engaged in child labour, with nearly 70 percent of them (about 171 million) working in hazardous conditions, including working in mines and quarries, working with chemicals and pesticides or with dangerous machinery.
"Children as young as five are forced to spend long-hours doing back-breaking labour, often in harsh weather and without access to health care," they said.
According to them, children mining rock, gold, coal, diamonds and precious metals in Africa, Asia and South America are at constant risk of dying on the job, being injured or becoming chronically ill.
In addition to facing safety and health risks from lifting heavy loads, children working in rock quarries inhale hazardous dust and particles and use dangerous tools and crushing equipment. Moreover, children at domestic work often have no opportunity to go to school, or are forced to drop out because of the demands of their jobs.
One in six of the world's children are involved in child labour. They do work that is exploitative and damages their physical, mental, social and psychological development, they pointed. According to recent ILO report, child labour, especially in its worst forms, is in decline for the first time across the globe.
The ILO report also says that if the current pace of the decline were to be maintained and the global momentum to stop child labour continued, it believes child labour could feasibly be eliminated, in most of its worst forms, in 10 years.
"The actual number of child labourers world-wide fell by 11 percent between 2000 and 2004, from 246 million to 218 million. The number of children and youth aged 5-17 trapped in hazardous work decreased by 26 percent, to reach 126 million in 2004 as opposed to 171 million in the previous estimate. Among younger child labourers aged 5-14, this drop was even more pronounced at 33 percent," says the report.