KARACHI:
Child labour has become very common in our country now. It refers to the use of children as a source of labour while depriving them of their fundamental rights in the process of growth and development. According to UNICEF, Pakistan holds the second-highest percentage of out-of-school children in the world. According to a news report of 2023, nearly 11 million youngsters in Pakistan work in various occupations to support their families. Impecunious children of aged between 7 to 14 years of age are seen working everywhere. They work in small hotels, tea stalls, and sweep floors in grocery stores and other shops. They are seen cleaning cars stopped on signals or parked on roads and many other such rum jobs. They are made to work for eight to twelve hours a day to earn money for their destitute families.
Who can we hold responsible for children’s plight in our country? Should we blame the have-not parents who compel them to toil? As per my perspective, parents should not be blamed for rising child labour in our country. Perhaps, it is the government who we can hold responsible for ballooning child labour in our country. The government’s ineffective policies have pushed the country into an abyss of inflation, from which the country will barely get back any time soon. The government’s inability to overcome inflation has coerced people to send their children to work. It is high time now that successive governments stopped blaming each other for inflation and devised a comprehensive plan to better cope with the challenges.
Muhammad Ahmad Sajid
Lahore
Published in The Express Tribune, April 4th, 2024.
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