Workers’ rights: Labour secy on eliminating child labour at kilns

LAHORE: Minister for Labour and Human Resource Raja Ashfaq Sarwar met Labour and Human Resource Secretary Nawazish Ali on Wednesday. Ali had recently represented the provincial government at the Annual Global Labour Conference in Geneva where he had given a briefing on steps taken to eliminate child labour at brick kilns in the Punjab.

The minister told journalists that delegates and participants from several countries, especially South Asian and Middle Eastern countries had lauded the government’s efforts to ensure enrolment of brick kiln workers’ children at schools, stipends, free education, books, uniforms, shoes and stationary.

Ali said he had also spoken about various other measures taken by the government for the welfare of labourers in the province and certain policies that aimed to protect labour rights.

The minister told journalists that Ali and Ali Sarfaraz Hussain, former labour secretary, represented Pakistan at the conference.

At the conference, they had told participants that the government had declared child labour at brick kilns a criminal offence. They said labour inspectors and administration officials had conducted 8,000 inspections at brick kilns and more than 500 brick kiln owners had been arrested for violating the Punjab Prohibition of Child Labour at Brick Kilns Act. Of those, 213 had been convicted and penalised by courts.

The participants of the conference were told that since the Act was promulgated, incidence of child labour at brick kilns had dropped from 28 per cent to less than 2 per cent. In order to encourage enrolment of children at schools, the government had announced an allowance of Rs2,000 per family at the time of enrolment and a monthly stipend of Rs1,000 per child along with free books, uniforms and facilities, Ali said. Education for children of brick kiln workers was free, he said.

The secretary said that most of the children had been enrolled and more than 7,000 Khidmat Cards, which allowed for cash transfers, had been distributed among brick kiln workers after a process of verification. The minister said computerised CNICs had been issued to brick kilns workers before they were given Khidmat Cards.

“The key factors for the success in this endeavour are: a clear political commitment, the use of android technology for geo-tagging brick kilns and the collection of data of workers and their children, a robust MIS system with geo-tags and time stamps, regular inspections and the provision of social security,” the labour secretary said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2016.