Child labour has been reported to have shot up by 20 per cent since the restoration of peace in the valley.
Thousands of children stagger, trying to make ends meet in their households. Extreme poverty is told to be the main cause of the children’s work.
Parents send their children to bear the strain of ever increasing price hikes in basic, everyday commodities. Hordes of children can be seen in hotels, factories, shops and workshops, who, instead of going to schools lend hands to their working parents.
“I want to get an education but our financial conditions don’t allow us to go to school. My mother says that my father’s income is not enough to meet our daily needs” said Sherbaz Khan, a seven years old scavenger. He added, “My brother and I collect scraps from trash around Mingora. Both of us make Rs100 daily.”
Brushing on the subject of games, Sherbaz added innocently, “I love cricket and play it whenever I get the chance.”
Working for a pittance and easily accessible in the market, these children are highly exploited by the owners of different trades. Presently, a day labourer is paid Rs350 but children are paid according to their masters’ whims.
Eight years old Basit Ali, who works at a tea stall to support his family, told the Express Tribune, “I’m given Rs60 for a whole day’s work. I come early in the morning and go home at 7pm daily.”
Explaining a routine workday, he said, “I have to wait on tables, clean up and wash dishes.”
“I don’t like being dirty. I want to go to school all neat and tidy. Having books in my bag is a dream,” he said, adding, “I too want to play games in the evening like children from rich families do. But I think such leisure is not our fate, because mother says we are poor.”
Kamran Khan, a 12-year old automobile mechanic, told The Express Tribune, “I began working here when I was six. I come to the workshop early in the morning and go back late at night. At first I had to assist my boss by providing tools for Rs10 per day but now I make Rs50 daily.”
“I don’t remember ever playing any game in my life. I really want to, but then who would earn for us?” he added.
“I can earn more than an educated person. I earn Rs300 per day while the shopkeeper next door to me is a graduate, but he earns Rs4,000 a month,” said a child cobbler, in Mingora Bazar.
After the restoration of peace in Swat, a number of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) working for the rights of children have been active here. Unfortunately, not a single one is really trying to tackle this pressing issue.
When contacted, Social Welfare District Officer Hamid Khan said, “Until today, no NGO has directly worked for the victims of child labour, though some of them are working for the rights of children. But soon, we are setting up a helpline for the welfare of such children in Swat. Under the programme, children will be provided every form of assistance possible.”
Though more than 10 NGOs operate in the region, the ratio is increasing by the day. Spending huge amounts of money under the banner of saving these children, their contribution to the cause remains questionable.
With additional reporting by Vaqas Asghar
Worst forms of child labour
ILO Convention 182, commonly known as the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, includes predefined forms of child labour referred to as automatic worst forms of child labour. Though Pakistan ratified this convention on October 11, 2001, the success in stopping these abuses is less than heartening.
The predefined worst forms of child labour are:
1.all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as
• the sale of a child;
• trafficking of children, meaning the recruitment of children to do work far away from home and their families, in circumstances within which they are exploited;
• debt bondage or any form of bonded labour or serfdom;
• forced or compulsory labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for armed conflict;
2.Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), including the use, procuring or offering of a child for:
• prostitution, or
• the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;
3.use, procuring or offering of a child by others for illegal activities, also known as children used by adults in the
26 forms of child labour most prevalent in Pakistan
During 2001 and 2002, the Government of Pakistan carried out a series of consultations with the labour department, trade unions, employers and NGOs in all the provinces. As a result of these deliberations, a national consensus list of occupations and categories of work was identified, which is given below:
1. Work in underground mines or above ground quarries, including blasting and assisting in blasting
2. Work with power-driven cutting machinery
3. Work with live electrical wires over 50V.
4. All operation related to the leather tanning process
5. Mixing or application or pesticides insecticide/fumigation.
6. Sandblasting and other work involving exposure to free silica.
7. Work with exposure to all toxic, explosive and carcinogenic chemicals
8. Work with exposure to cement dust (cement industry)
9. Work with exposure to coal dust
10. Manufacture and sale of fireworks explosives
11. Work at the sites where Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) are filled in cylinders.
12. Work on glass and metal furnaces
13. Work in the clothe printing, dyeing and finishing sections
14. Work inside sewer pipelines, pits, storage tanks
15. Stone crushing
16. Lifting and carrying heavy weight, (15b kg and above)
17. Work between 10 pm to 8 am
18. Carpet weaving
19. Working 2 meter above the floor
20. All scavenging including hospital waste
21. Tobacco processing and Manufacturing
22. Deep fishing (commercial fishing/ sea food and fish processing
23. Sheep casing and wool industry
24. Ship breaking
25. Surgical instrument manufacturing, especially in vendors workshop
26. Bangles glass, furnaces
Published in The Express Tribune, April 5th, 2011.
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