Domestic labour: ‘Punjab has most violence against child workers cases’

National conference on issue planned for October 29.


Aroosa Shaukat October 21, 2011

LAHORE:


In August, Taqi Usman, a 12-year-old domestic servant from Chiniot was allegedly clubbed to death in Lahore by his employer for not feeding the house pet. Fourteen-year-old Ahsan Haider was killed on suspicion of stealing the sound system from the music academy where he was employed.  State of Pakistan’s Children 2010, a report compiled by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) claims as many as eight cases of severe torture against domestic child servants led to their deaths last year.


The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which sets out the political, cultural, social, health and economic rights of a child (under the age of 18), has been ratified by 194 countries. Pakistan is one of the first 20 countries to have signed and ratified the convention.

Article 32 of the Convention says, “the right of the child to be protected from ‘economic exploitation’ and from performing any work that is likely to be ‘hazardous’ or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health physical, mental or otherwise.”

Iftikhar Mubarik, the programme manager of the Violence against Child Labourers run by SPARC identified domestic employment as the worst form of child labour. Mubarik added that domestic labour deprives young children of several rights that have been identified by the State. It has ‘no specified working hours’ which often victimises young children to a routine devoid of education, rest and leisure.

Section 7 of the Employment of Children Act 1991 states, “The period of work on each day shall be so fixed that no period shall exceed three hours and that no child shall work for more than three hours before he has an interval of at least one hour for rest.” The Act which defines a child as a person below the age of 14, while prohibiting certain occupations for a child fails to address child labour in the domestic sector.

According to an ILO estimate, in Pakistan every fourth house employs a child for work.  Mubarik said that in the previous year as many as ten cases of child domestic servants being tortured and killed were reported.

SPARC claims that though child domestic labour is practiced in all provinces of Pakistan, most cases of violence towards child domestic labour occur in Punjab.

The Child Rights Movement (CRM) launched their Punjab chapter on September 28. The body comprises of almost 20 NGOs, hailing from various districts of Punjab. The CRM has demanded that the federal government establish the National Commission for the Rights of the Child in compliance with the recommendations given by the UN Committee on Child Rights in its concluding observations to Pakistan.

Demands were made to the Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to include domestic labour in the schedule of the 34 banned Hazardous Occupations as defined by the Employment of Children Act (ECA) 1991.

MPA Seemal Kamran said there was a lack of legislation to ensure the complete abolition of child domestic labour.  She added that after the 18th Amendment child domestic labour had become a provincial issue. “While we celebrate Children’s Day every year, we fail to address the issues that pertain to basic child rights,” Kamran said.

Labour secretary Hassan Iqbal said the issue of child domestic labour had already been taken up by the provincial government. Regarding the delay in legislation, the secretary said the government had been busy ‘tackling dengue’ for the past few months. “There is no arguing that child domestic labour is a vice. We are working towards legislation,” Iqbal added.

SPARC plans to hold a national conference on child domestic labour on October 29 to take on board various stakeholders to petition the assembly in adding it to the list of banned occupations. The Punjab chapter of the CRM also plans to hold consultative meetings in November with members of the Punjab Assembly.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 22nd, 2011.

COMMENTS (3)

Arshad Mahmood | 12 years ago | Reply

@Maria, Since brutal murder of Shazia Masih in January 2010 so far 13 child domestic workers' murders have been reported in media and unfortunately all these children including 11 girls and 2 boys belong to Punjab. The government of Punjab should immediately notify child domestic labour under the schedule of banned occupations of the Employment of Children Amendment Act 2011.

Shadab mumtaz | 12 years ago | Reply

Change is not so far away

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