Pakistan is one of the countries that have come under increased focus - and pressure - at global level in yester years on the phenomenon of child labour, often resulting in giving this country a bad image, by and large.
Child labour, however, is one of the most pressing issues facing the world of today and while one can find child labour and underage kids working and forced to work by a variety of circumstances in all part of the world, it is considered particularly rampant in developing nations such as Pakistan and countries in transition.
As described earlier, child labour is a challenge faced by almost all the societies and geographic entities across the planet. As circumstances and situations vary from place to place, it is, therefore, not easy to come up with a universally accepted definition. Nonetheless, the simplest definition of all is "employment of children under a specified minimum age."
Statistics of children involved in child labour vary. Various statistics obtained by certain national and international organisations point that presently there are nearly 3.3 million working children in Pakistan, at least. Majority of these are the male children. Some 73 percent or almost three fourth are boys and remaining one fourth ie 27 percent are girls.
According to Federal Bureau of Statistics' survey conducted some time ago, province wise figures match the provincial populations as Punjab is cited to have the highest ratio at 60 percent followed by 20 percent in NWFP, 14 percent in Sindh and 6 percent in the least populated province of Balochistan. The difference literacy or education makes in the life of a person is quite clear.
Almost 70 percent of the total working children are absolutely illiterate.
Eradicating child labour should naturally be one of the foremost tasks before any government. However, for a country like ours it is of added significance as our economy's growth is largely dependent on exports. Certain countries and regional groups around the world impose strict restrictions on imports from the countries where child labour is common even knowing that, little is done to tackle child labour in the country. Pakistani sports goods' exports were particularly threatened a few years back because of the very reason.
While coming under strict international pressure globally and vigorous campaigns from the civil society organisations locally, successive government have indeed made efforts to eliminate the practice from Pakistan or to minimise it. Such efforts were intensified in the last few years.
The National Policy and Plan of Action (NPPA) to combat child labour was approved by the federal cabinet on May 10, 2000. As a broader framework, it defines the policies, strategies, activities and responsibilities of different agencies, time frame, delivery system, and resources for child labour elimination.
In pursuance of the objective of eliminating worst forms of child labour on priority basis, the Government of Pakistan ratified the ILO Convention 182 in 2001. Pakistan also ratified ILO Convention 138 on Minimum Age in 2006. The country is also signatory to ILO Forced Labour Convention (No 29); ILO Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (No 105) and UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
It is rightly said that eliminating child labour is an investment in the future, as a commitment to childhood that produces significant beneficial results when children reach adulthood can be truly beneficial in economic and social terms for any nation. It may be pointed out here that Article 11 (3) of the constitution of Pakistan prohibits employment of children below the age of 14 years in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment.
The Government of Pakistan has also established a fund for the education of working children and rehabilitation of freed bonded labour with an initial endowment of Rs 100 million.
The Labour Policy, 2002, endorses the NPPA to combat child labour and states that the Government of Pakistan has accepted the responsibility to enhance the age limit to 18 years with respect to the worst forms of child labour, for entry into the labour market.
Major strategies include enhancement of educational opportunities for working children through the launching of crash literacy programmes for school dropouts and introducing apprenticeship, vocational and skills development programmes; establishment of special resource centers in the Labour Departments to act as focal points and to monitor and co-ordinate the activities, and activation of the law enforcement agencies for immediate withdrawal of children working in hazardous and exploitative situations supplemented by rehabilitation programmes.
Making efforts to eliminate child labour can be termed every person's responsibility. Government has the primary responsibility. But civil society also shoulders the burden. Media, however, has a particularly important role to play in this connection.
Media has doubtlessly delivered to the Pakistani society recently to improve the situation on various social issues and it may be added that there is a dire need of increased activity to further educate the people of Pakistan about the existence and the magnitude of the problem of child labour.
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