Stolen childhood: Child labour continues to destroy lives

Kids forced to work as putting bread on the table deemed more important

RAWALPINDI: Haider Ali is among millions of children in Pakistan who are involved in labour work at an age when they should be in school.

The 12-year-old spends his day at an auto-mechanic shop, assisting his ‘master’ in repairing motorcycles and spends his night in a small rented room along with two other children: Mateen Ahmed, 7, and Asif Nadeem, 10. Ali’s father died of cardiac arrest when he was five-years-old.

Three years ago, when Ali was in the 5th  grade, he left school and started working to support his mother. He works from 8am to 6pm at the shop in Glass Factory area of Rawalpindi, earning Rs8,000 per month.

In some ways Ali is lucky, as he at least obtained a primary education unlike millions of others in the country who have no basic education at all and are being denied their fundamental right under the Constitution.

His roommates, Ahmed and Nadeem, are among children who have never enrolled in school. They also work at the auto-mechanic shop with Ali. The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child’s 2014 report revealed that there are around 25 million children who are out of school, which constitutes nearly half of the child population in the country.

A UN report revealed that an estimated 72 per cent of working children do not have contact with their families and 10 per cent have no information about their parents. Ali and his two young colleagues, however, are among the fortunate ones, who remain in contact with their families and spend their vacations with them.

There are no official statistics available on underage employment in the country. However, various sources have projected a significantly high number of child labourers in Pakistan, as 12 million (ILO), 10 million (Unicef) and 9.86 million (Child Rights Movement). Globally, Pakistan is ranked number three with high prevalence of forced and child labour.

There is a law in Pakistan which protects the right of children, such as the Employment of Children Act 1991, however, the 18th Amendment empowered provinces to pass their own respective laws with regards to child rights. Following the amendment, provinces were bound to enact their own anti-child labour laws in line with the International Labour Organization conventions ratified by Pakistan. After about five years, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan have failed to approve the anti-child labour bill from their respective assemblies. The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa cabinet, however, approved the Prohibition of Employment of Children Bill in January 2014.

Besides, bringing laws in line with Article 25-A, which calls for free education for children under 16 years of age, labour laws need to be amended to increase minimum age of employment from 14 years to 16 years.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2015.