Eradicating the menace: ‘Those involved in bonded labour to face the music’

DC says officials should ensure implementation of recommended wages

MULTAN: Deputy Commissioner Nadir Chatha stated that strict punishments will be awarded to those involved in bonded labour, especially at kilns. He added that all practical measures should be taken to eradicate this practice.

He expressed these views while chairing a labour department meeting reviewing bonded labour and labour laws.

He directed concerned officers to speed up the registration of labourers and children working at kilns.

He also ordered them to submit a report in this regard as soon as possible.

The deputy commissioner also directed officials to conduct a survey in factories and commercial industries within the city limits.

Chatha maintained that officials should ensure that the recommended wages are being implemented.

Earlier, hundreds of brick kiln owners staged demonstrations in various cities across the province to protest against the administration’s drive to eliminate child labour at brick kilns.

They carried banners and walked on several roads in the city shouting slogans against the district administrations’ raids against child labour.

Brick Kiln Owners Association Chairperson Haji Muhammad Altaf said the government had issued the Ordinance for the Elimination of Child Labour under which the district administration and the labour department had made it impossible for them to run their business.

He said brick kiln owners were dead set against child labour, “because it compromises the quality of bricks made at our kilns”. However, the government is tarnishing our reputation to please its “foreign masters” and is “making us out to be cruel”.

In order to achieve their target, district administration officials have wrongfully implicated several brick kiln owners, he maintained.

Altaf said instead of cracking down on brick kiln owners, the government should round up the children’s parents and put them in prison.

Meanwhile, under the amended law, those involved in human trafficking will be sentenced to life imprisonment and fined Rs1 million.

There are more than 20 laws in Pakistan which deal with different aspects of child labour. These include anti-child labour legislation, child protection legislation and anti-trafficking and bonded labour laws. Most of these laws were enacted or reformed after 2010.

The Labour Force Survey 2014-15 indicates that there are 3.70 million child labourers, aged between 10-17 years, in the country. Out of this 1.64 million are engaged in hazardous work, which is defined as “any type of employment or work which by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out is likely to jeopardise the health, safety or morals of young persons”.

Besides this, there is a lack of coherence and consistency in new enactments and reforms initiated during recent years.

None of the child labour laws regulate the work in family enterprises where children mostly function as unpaid helpers. Since family enterprises are exempted from following working hour regulations they can expose children to exploitation because of its invisibility and lack of accountability.

The legislation also does not regulate child domestic work. Children as young as 10 years, work as live-in domestic helpers. It is similar to the case of children working at brick kilns as no law recognises this as hazardous work.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 9^th, 2018.