Children are the most beautiful and purest creation of God. Wordsworth, the poet of nature, used children to illustrate the simplicity, wholesomeness and innocence of man. Nelson Mandela, South Africa's anti-apartheid revolutionary politician and philanthropist who served as the first President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, held the view that "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children." Regrettably, in an age wherein they must go to school, study, and play with friends, they are forced to earn a living for themselves and for their families as domestic workers, on shops, and in factories, in hazardous and sometimes slave-like conditions. Their aspirations, dreams and wishes have no meaning. They are treated as the most neglected part of the society - the category referred to as 'child labour.' Despite global campaigns against child labour (especially in its worst forms) this menace continues to engulf children across the world.
A 14-year-old housemaid in Morocco, a North African country with an overwhelming population of underage domestic workers, mainly girls, died last year after being abused by her employer - sadly, a woman. The girl suffered third-degree burns to her hands and face. The death of the housemaid sparked a public outcry. The event hit the newspaper headlines giving ammunition to those demanding an end to the exploitation of child workers in the kingdom. The woman employer was tried and jailed for 20 years in January this year. The trial became a symbol of the ordeal that tens of thousands of child have to endure while serving as domestic servants in many other parts of the world.
Morocco's labour laws prohibit the employment of children under the age of 15 and require the authorisation of a guardian for anyone under 18. Despite these laws, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is reported to have estimated that around 66,000 to 88,000 children aged between 7 and 15 years (70 percent of them less than 12 years old) are working in Morocco as domestic servants. In its annual report published recently, Human Rights Watch revealed that girls as young as eight continue to work in private homes for up to 12 hours per day, and are paid as little as $11 per month.
United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and ILO acknowledge an estimated 168 million children, aged between 5 to17 years were involved in child labour world-wide in 2013. Of the countries reported on UNICEF State of the World's Children 2013 publication, Somalia (a country located at the Horn of Africa), Benin (a country in West Africa) and Burkina Faso (a landlocked country in West Africa) were the worst offenders, with child labour at 49 percent, 46 percent and 39 percent respectively. Beyond Sub-Saharan Africa, Cambodia is reported to be having the highest rate of child labour- 36 percent.
In 2006, ILO's Second Global Report on Child Labour reported significant progress in the fight against child labour. Encouraged by the positive trend, the ILO fixed a target of eliminating child labour by 2016 in its worst forms. The visionary target, however, proved too ambitious. Four years on, the decline in child labour wasn't encouraging. According to ILO's Third Global Report released in 2010, although child labour showed a declining trend it was at a slower pace, a reduction of just 3 percent of the global estimates in the four-year period, leaving 215 million children still in the child labour trap. Of them, 115 million were reportedly exposed to hazardous work - work that directly endangers the child's health, safety and moral development.
Child labour is a global issue and is more pronounced in Latin America and Africa, but the scenario in Asia is also not much different. It is estimated that in several Asian countries, 10 percent of the manpower consists of children. In India, the number of child workers aged between 10 and 14 years has crossed 44 million. In Pakistan, this number is reported to be around 8 to 10 million. In Bangladesh, the number is 8-12 million, while in Brazil it is around 7 million.
Prior to the 1960's, child labour in Pakistan was widespread within family businesses but seldom did children work outside homes. With the emergence of new factories and a desire by factory owners to reduce labour costs, the country witnessed an explosion of child-based labour force. Pakistan is still among the top ten countries with child labour issues. According to the national child labour survey, of the 40 million children aged between 5 to 14 years, approximately 3.3 million are working as labourers for survival. They include boys and girls - boys forming 73 percent and girls 27 percent of child workers - and their majority works overtime for sustenance.
Child labour problem stems from a multitude of socio-economic factors rooted in uneven distribution of wealth and resources, poverty, lack of education, high rate of population growth, low economic growth and hence unemployment, outdated social customs and norms, and the sustained neglect of all these disparities that play a major role in aggravating the issue in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world. ILO believes that poverty is the greatest single cause behind child labour issue. According to a World Bank report entitled World Development Indicators (WDI) 2013, sixty percent of Pakistan's population is living below poverty line; the international poverty line is $2 a day or an income of Rs 200 per day. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the daily income of 65.5% people of Pakistan is below $2 a day. The report shows that 21 percent of Pakistan's population lives below $1.25 per day. However, compared to India and Bangladesh, the situation in Pakistan is better. In India, poverty rate is 68.7 percent while it is 76.5 percent in Bangladesh.
The 2005 earthquake that hit parts of northern Pakistan and Azad Kashmir also played a significant role in increasing child labour in Pakistan; it pushed millions of families to the wall of economic extinction and their children were left with no choice but to earn their bread and butter themselves. According to UNICEF, out of the 20 million people affected by the floods in Pakistan, 10 million were children - 2.8 million of them aged below 5 years. Reportedly, since January 2010 to December 2013, 52 cases of tortures on child domestic workers (CDWs) were reported including 24 deaths compared to 12 cases of torture on CDWs including seven deaths in 2010 and 10 cases of torture on CDWs including six deaths in 2011. In 2012, the number further reduced to eight including three deaths. The year 2013, declared as the year of child rights, proved lethal for children; it witnessed 21 cases, including 8 deaths of CDWs and except two, all of the dead were girls.
Perturbed by the alarming level of child labour, the All Pakistan Federation of United Trade Unions (APFUTU) took up this issue at the national and regional levels and set up a National Child Labour Cell, which has taken up several projects within their programmes giving sufficient importance to the issue. In June 2013, the Supreme Court of Pakistan also declared CDW as illegal and unconstitutional, and directed the government to take measures accordingly.
Eradication of child labour is, and would continue to be a formidable task unless it's fundamental raison d'être - alleviation of poverty, check on population growth, spread of right kind of education and provision of health facilities - is addressed with national consensus. In 2012, Pakistan made a moderate advance in its efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour; the government passed the Human Rights Act, increased access to education for children between aged 5 to 16 years through the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, and launched the Waseela-e-Taleem initiative under Benazir Income Support Program. In addition, the Punjab provincial government passed the Punjab Bonded Labour System Act and launched a 5-year $2 million project to combat the menace. Despite these efforts, Pakistan continues to lack sufficient legal protections for working children.
Interestingly, while provincial government units drafted the legislation to protect children from the worst forms of child labour in response to a government-wide decentralisation effort, only one province passed such legislation while the federal law remains in effect in the remaining provinces. These laws fall short of meeting international standards. With enforcement efforts remaining weak, children continue to be engaged in the worst forms of child labour.
Child labour is a complex issue that must be tackled through efforts individually as well as collectively. In the first place it calls for creating mass awareness among parents about the detrimental effects of child labour. It is important for every member of the society to play a pro-active role in preventing children from entering exploitative forms of labour and empowering them through education and skill enhancement. If per force of circumstances children must work, it is important to advocate that they are employed in safe vocations.
The fight against child labour is on but the pace of progress is wholly insufficient to achieve the ILO target of eliminating its worst forms by 2016, although achieving this goal is possible; what it requires is strong political will embedded in a national policy that addresses issues such as improved legislation and its enforcement, improved methodologies for identifying children trapped in labour; rising awareness about this ill at all levels of the society, and provision of viable rehabilitating alternatives for poverty-stricken children and their families. Without this, any effort to get rid of the menace would simply end up in futility.
(The writer is ex-Director of IBP, ex-Advisor Training & Media, Sindh Bank and Editor, Value Chain, a monthly business magazine.)
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