‘Social justice key to eradicating child labour’

President Dr Arif Alvi Monday said the challenge of child labour can be overcome by promoting social justice and ensuring the provision of quality education to children.

World Day against Child Labour is observed all over the world to raise awareness for the prevention of child labour, and encourage stakeholders to speak against this social evil, the President said in a message on the observance of the day.

The president said that child labour was a growing curse in the world, as according to the United Nations, around 160 million children were forced into child labour.

"Globally, one out of every 10 children is working as a child labour." He said although child labour had been reduced on the international level, still there was a dire need for further efforts to eradicate the social evil. Alvi emphasised that poverty, wars, terrorism and lack of access to education were the basic causes of child labour. He added that the basic causes needed to be overcome to completely eradicate the challenge.

Dr Alvi said poverty forces families to get their children to engage in work at an early age. “Child labour deprived children from receiving basic education and access to health facilities. It exposed them to harmful and hazardous environments and clipped their basic rights to life and liberty.”

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2023.