Abuse continues: ‘No targets achieved after 17 years’

KARACHI: A national policy and action plan to combat child labour was formulated in 2000 but, unfortunately, no targets have been achieved after the passage of 17 years.

The secretary of National Labour Council, Karamat Ali, said this while addressing a press conference at KPC on Friday. He was speaking in light of a case of an 11-year-old child, Tayyaba, which recently emerged. Ali said that it was a welcome step on part of the apex court for taking notice of the case in which Tayyaba was allegedly tortured by the wife of a sitting judge. “[However], despite [the fact that] the case has started on Friday, the whereabouts of the victim and his father [remain] unknown, which was the responsibility of the area police.”



Ali added that the civil society demands of the judiciary that the case must not be limited to Tayyaba alone while the government must be held accountable for not implementing the law passed in 1991.

According to Ali, stern action must be taken against those who took the child hostage and made her a bonded and child labourer.

“Nine million children are working as child labourers and two million as bonded labour [in Pakistan], which needs to be eliminated,” said Ali. According to him, the national policy reads ‘The ministry of education in 1998 sets the goals for universalization of basic education’.

Speaking on the occasion, Habibuddin Junaidi from the Sindh Labour Solidarity Committee said that child labour is related to poverty and it is impossible to eradicate it unless we provide social security to the poor families.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2017.