Sukkur gears towards dealing with child labour

The district administration has started collecting relevant data from 11 union councils.

SUKKUR: Hoping to stem the widespread use of children as a source of cheap labour, Sukkur’s district administration has partnered with the European Union and the International Labour Organisation to tackle the growing problem.

Mubeen Illahi, Sukkur’s additional deputy commissioner, highlighted the achievements of the Combating Abusive Child Labour (CACL- II) Project during an event on Tuesday. The ILO provided technical expertise for the programme, funded by the EU.

Illahi said that five action programmes have been designed to make “the district a model for the rest of the country for tackling the worst forms of child labour”. A child labour monitoring system would be put in place, while relevant data about the number of children working in harsh conditions would be collected from 11 union councils.

A district coordination committee on child labour issues, headed by Sukkur’s deputy commissioner, has already become functional, while a district child labour unit has also been established at the commissioner’s office.



Government officials and over 500 public school teachers are being trained about the various ways they could deal with the situation. Teachers are themselves trying to get children who used to work as labourers to enroll in schools. ILO’s Asfaque Ahmed said that, “the network of schools needed to be expanded into far-flung areas, such as Salehpat, Pano Aqil and Rohri”.

The district education department has prepared a set of guidelines to eliminate the worst forms of child labour, and forwarded them to the provincial education secretary for approval.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2013.