Domestic child labour is not only increasing poverty and backwardness but also breading social evils. This was the crux of presentation made by a social researcher here on Tuesday.
The presentation was made by a social researcher from Save the Children, UK, Salima Majeed Jafari, at the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) centre for democratic development. According to her, a child servant was paid between Rs200 and Rs1000 monthly compared to Rs3000 salary which an adult gets, and thus, increasing the child labour manifold.
However, she said, it is alarming that this type of labour went unnoticed from social researchers.
According to the research, 90 percent of child labourers were girls between the age of 6 and 12 years, who were subjected to physical, psychological and sexual abuse by their employers, she pointed out.
Ms. Jafari said children, who worked as domestic workers, were more vulnerable to trafficking within and outside the country.
She said there were no working hours defined for these labourers because of absence of law to hold their employers accountable.
She said, in Pakistan, the government gave no priority to this issue as no action was taken to discourage this practice despite the fact that many other poor countries, including Philippines, had reduced number of domestic child labourers through various measures.
She said section 182 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention prohibited the child labour. Though, Pakistan had ratified the convention, the government has not yet included domestic child labour in the list of those 29 types of worst crimes that existed in Pakistan.
Pakistan Muslim League (PML) MNA Mehnaz Rafi said lack of educational facilities and other legal safeguards were plunging many more children into child labour.