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Domestic child workers left at exploiters’ mercy

Parents receive only half of salaries from employers


Rana Yasif May 20, 2020
LAHORE: While several groups are providing domestic servants, especially children, to clients, some of them have also been found involved in blackmailing the employers as well as the families of the employees in such cases.

A number of petitions were filed in the Lahore High Court (LHC) in recent months for the recovery of the children working as domestic servants. The petitioners levelled various allegations in the cases.

In some cases, those who had managed the dealings between the families of the domestic workers and their employers were found pressuring both parties during the proceedings of their cases.

Sometimes the minors refused to go with the women petitioners, saying they were not their mothers.

Recently a case was heard by the LHC in which a woman petitioner sought recovery from a family of three children serving at their home. She pretended to be the mother of the children.

Petitioner Nazia Bibi, who provided domestic servants to families, filed in LHC the petition seeking recovery of three minors, pretending to be their mother.

She claimed that members of the family for whom the children were working as domestic servants used to torture them and did not allow them to meet their parents. She contended that the children were not paid their salaries on time.

She prayed to the court to order the police to produce the minors before it after recovering them from the family for which they worked.

During the proceedings, the objection raised by the lawyer of the respondent family raised eyebrows. He said the petitioner was not the real mother of the children.

Meanwhile, the police of the relevant area was directed to produce the minors named Sidra, Maria, and Zain before the court. As the parents of the children were informed, they also reached the court.

Justice Sadiq Mehmood Khurram came down hard on the conduct of the petitioner and asked her lawyer if it was true that she was not the mother of the children. Her counsel conceded that she was not the mother. The judge, expressing his displeasure over the attempt to deceive the court, remarked why not a fine be imposed and the petition dismissed.

At this the lawyer tendered an apology and withdrew his petition. Finally, the judge dismissed the petition as withdrawn.

Later, the respondent family’s lawyer said that one Dr Maham and Nazia Bibi were running a gang through which children were taken away from their parents on the promise of arranging jobs for them. He said the children are sent to different families for substantial salaries but their parents were given a lesser amount. He alleged that the petitioner had been demanding money from the family for whom the minors were working. As the family refused to fulfill her demand, she filed a habeas corpus petition, seeking recovery of the children.

The children also said the petitioner and another woman used to receive the salaries from their masters but give only half of that to their parents.

Cases of violence against children working as domestic help are rampant in the city.

Despite legislation, domestic child labourers were treated like slaves and not only deprived of their right to education but health services, survival, food, proper care, to have friends, enjoy free time as well as protection from abuse, violence, and exploitation.

Child rights activists believe that domestic child labour was promoting the class differences among kids and this can also leave negative impacts on their psychological and emotional well-being. The government can’t make excuses for delaying the enactment of necessary legislation to prohibit domestic child labour. The delay would result in violating children’s best interests.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20th, 2020.

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