Drive against child labour: ‘Rural populace is being ignored’

Speakers at a seminar say campaign against child labour focuses on urban regions only.

ISLAMABAD: The entire focus of campaigns against child labour is limited to urban areas and the rural regions are being ignored.

This was said by Pakistan Workers Federation’s General Secretary Aurangzaib Khan at the “National Media Seminar Against Worst Forms of Child Labour”, which was organised by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and International Labour Organization (ILO) in Islamabad on Thursday.

“No one is focusing on what really is going on in the rural areas,” Khan said, adding that children working in rural setups are kept like prisoners. They get paid half of what children working in the cities get. He blamed the poor economy, rampant poverty, poor governance and lack of awareness behind the rise in child labour in the country.

He added that there was a need to focus on combating child labour from the ground up.

“It is the right of every child in Pakistan to have education, [access to a] good environment and good living,” Khan said.

Other prominent people that participated in the seminar included ILO Country Director Donglin Li, Minister of State for Information Syed Sumsam Bokhari, Employers Federation of Pakistan President Haji Muhammad Javed and representatives of NGOs working against child labour. Media students from universities in Rawalpindi and Islamabad were also present.

Javed said it was a religious obligation to eliminate child labour from the country. He said ILO and the government needed to focus on eradicating child labour found in homes, where people employed children as servants.

Li said that media was a powerful tool that could be used in spreading awareness about child labour.

ILO also announced that as part of its strategy to combat child labour in the country, it will fund the education of children who otherwise cannot get educated.

Mohammad Saifullah Chaudhry, ILO’s representative, said for the past five six years there has been a significant change in the trend of reporting on child labour in media.

“There was a time when no media outlet was independently reporting on child labour issues but with the passage of time the trend has changed and now we see reporters [covering such issues] on their own,” he said.

Children, on the occasion, presented a tableau with a message to oust child labour from the country. Fareeha Parvez and Rohan (of Chotay Ustad fame) also performed at the occasion.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2010.