KARACHI:
That child labour is a serious issue affecting millions of innocent children in Pakistan goes without saying. A lot has been said and written on the plight of the children working on streets and in garages and factories, but all the hue and cry has fallen on deaf ears, and there has not even been an iota of change. Instead of being sent to school and enjoy their childhood, innocent children are forced to work and earn a living for their families — something that is a stark violation of their basic rights and injurious to their physical, emotional and mental health.
According to reports, more and more children have been forced into the menace of child labour in the post-Covid era. It’s because the pandemic wreaked havoc on family incomes, and many parents pulled their children out of school and threw them into child labour. Unicef says that a one percentage point rise in poverty leads to at least a 0.7 per cent increase in child labour in certain countries. I am sure Pakistan is among such countries. One wonders how long the concerned quarters in our country will take for rising from their criminal slumber on this longstanding issue that is affecting our children — our future.
Javeria Khaliq
Kech
Published in The Express Tribune, July 19th, 2023.
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