Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Child Labor
Child Labor
Prepared for
By
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................v
1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................1
1.1. Purpose..............................................................................................................................1
1.2. Problem.............................................................................................................................1
1.3. Scope.................................................................................................................................1
2. Background..............................................................................................................................2
3.1. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................12
3.2. Recommendations...............................................................................................................13
4. REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................14
iii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TABLES
FIGURE
iv
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Child Labor needs immediate attention, both at national and provincial level. The actions taken
by the government, if any, are not sufficient enough to curtail it and it puts the future of millions
of children in jeopardy.
We recommend immediate action and urge the relevant authorities to take necessary measure
such as,
Additionally, the main reasons behind child labor and bonded labor are,
Poverty
Lack of education
No concrete legislations
No regulation of the informal sectors in Pakistan
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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. PURPOSE:
Child labor remains among the critical issues in the developing countries where millions
of children are either forced or they unwillingly have to work, under such circumstances
which are not safe and results in the deterioration of their mental and physical health.
Pakistan is also among those countries. (Mansuri, 2006)
The purpose of this report is to bring into light the crucial issue of child labor in Pakistan,
its reasons, the factors that lead to this and what is being done to overcome this issue,
both by the government, and other bodies. This report looks into the statistical numbers
and figures as well regarding labor force in Pakistan.
1.2. PROBLEM:
Pakistan is a developing country and still the people of Pakistan are deprived of some of
their very basic rights. One of the fundamental right of a child is to get education- so that
he can safeguard his future and avoid economic exploitation. But, unfortunately, since
poverty prevails in Pakistan, there are many people who cannot even feed their family,
which results in child labor. The report focuses on the problem of child labor in Pakistan
and after thoroughly analyzing this issue, provide some recommendations in order to
overcome this problem.
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1.3. SCOPE:
This study addresses the issue of child labor, its situation in Pakistan and statistics, looks
into its reasons, the factors behind it, the laws that provide safeguard from this, why they
are not able to actually provide safeguard, and lastly, what can be done in order to
eliminate this cancer from our society.
2. BACKGROUND
There are various manifestations in which child labor has thrived in Pakistan. But first of
all, we need to understand the term completely. As per International Labor Organization
(ILO) and UNICEF, child labor and child work are two different terminologies.
According to ILO, such work is classified as child labor which robs them of their
childhood, hurts their dignity and becomes a hurdle in their mental, physical and moral
development, and above all, impedes their education. Due to such work, either they will
have to leave the school permanently, or attend school with heavy work load, thus
resulting in continuous deterioration of their educational development (Basu, 1999)
. Thus, ILO differentiates between child labor and child work on the basis of age of the
child, type and hours of work performed and working condition.
As per UNICEF, child labor is when it exceeds a specific number of hours, depending on
the age of the child, and the type of the work, and working conditions.
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2.1. CHILD LABOR IN PAKISTAN
Globally, a lot of work has been done regarding the elimination of child labor. In
September 2013, ILO released figures which highlighted that the number of children
involved in economic activities had fallen to 168 Million, from 215 Million in 2000. This
is no doubt a significant decrease, but the alarming thing is the fact that around 85
Million of the children are tangled in the worst forms of child labor. In contrast, Pakistan
was ranked 6th among the 10 worst countries for child labor by a risk analysis firm,
Maplecroft for the year of 2014. The report further suggested that child labor was as
common in developing countries as in underdeveloped ones. When a country is in
developing stage, it requires man power for its expanding economic activities and child
labor provides a cheap labor.
Since there are no national surveys available on the number of children falling a victim to
child labor, we have to rely on international organizations or NGOs. As per ILO, more
than 12 Million children laborers were in Pakistan in 2012. UNICEF reports this number
as 10 Million, and as per Child Rights Movement (CRM), more than 9.86 Million
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children of ages between 10 and 19 were a part of active labor force; 2.58 Million of
these were between 10 and 14, and unfortunately, thousands of them were below the age
of 10.
Figure 1 borrows data from the government’s 2012-2013 survey of the National Labor
Force indicating the percentage of children of age 10-14 employed in different sectors.
Whereas, Table 1 shows the statistics regarding the numbers of children working as
compared to number of children going to school and those who are combining these two.
4
Sector wise division of Child Labor
15%
9%
76%
Another worth mentioning area in this regard is the employment of young children,
especially girls as domestic servants, who are quite frequently subjected to extreme abuse
as well.
5
per UNDP, 65.5% of people are earning below $2 a day, and as per Asian Development
Bank (ADB), 47 Million people are living below the line of poverty. What else can be
expected under such circumstances?
Before talking about the laws that addresses child labor, first we need to look at the
constitutional provisions addressing child labor:
Article 3: the state shall ensure the elimination of all forms of exploitation and the
gradual fulfillment of fundamental principle, from each according to his ability and to
each according to his work.
Article 11(3): No child below the age of 14 years shall be engaged in any factory or mine
or any other hazardous employment.
Article 25(A): The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of
the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as determined by law.
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Article 37(e): The state shall make provision for securing just and humane conditions of
work, ensuring that women and children are not employed in vacations unsuited to their
age or sex, and for maternity benefits for women in employment.
Besides these, following acts and rules deals exclusively with child labor:
In addition to these two, there are few other laws who address child labor, like:
A summarized form of the laws relating to child labor are shown in Table 3:
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Standard Yes/No Age Related Law
Age Restriction No
Age Restriction for Yes 14 Employment of
Hazardous Work Children Act 1991
List of Hazardous Yes SAME
Occupations
Ban on Forced Yes Bonded Labor
Labor System Abolition
Act, Constitution of
Pakistan
Ban on Child Yes Penal Code of
Trafficking Pakistan
Ban on Sexual Yes Penal Code of
Exploitation of Pakistan
Children
Ban on using NO
Children for Illicit
Activities
Minimum age for Yes 18 NSO 1970
Voluntary service in
Miltary
Mandatory Yes 16 Right to Free
Education Age Education Act
Free Public Yes 16 SAME
Education
Source: US Department of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs report on
“Findings On The Worst Forms Of Child Labor, 2013”
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1. Minimum Wage Policy
2. Child Labor Inspectors (CLIs)
3. Legal Aid Support Units for Bonded Labors
4. Child Labor Free Model Districts
5. The Child Support Program (CSP) and National Centre for The Rehabilitation of
Child Laborers (NCRCLs) supported by Pakistan Bait ul Maal.
The government has introduced institutional mechanisms in order to enforce laws and
regulations regarding Child Labor.
Agency Role
Provincial Labor Inspectors Inspect industrial areas and monitor them.
Identify violations, enforce both national
and provincial laws, and take legal actions
if necessary.
District Vigilance Committees Enforce BLSA,
Anti-Trafficking unit of FIA Keep a check on human trafficking
Police Investigate cases of Bonded Labors,
enforce BLSA
Table 4: Agencies for Monitoring Child Labor
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Furthermore, provincial governments are also funding different programs which is
actually a very good sign.
In Pakistan, it has become a culturally accepted norm and this is not even considered
something wrong. It exposes children to mistreatment, sexual abuse and harmful
environments. It deprives them of their childhood and their basic right of education. As
per an estimation by The Institute of Social Justice, there were 264,000 child domestic
labor (CDL) in Pakistan in 2013. These children are employed without any legal or
formal contracts, thus, their employers usually exploit them without the fear of any legal
repercussions. The children have to live in the houses of their employers and are totally
on their mercy. They are often not paid their salaries and not even allowed to meet their
family.
If we talk about statistics, alone in 2013, 21 cases of torture were reported. Please note,
this number is only for the cases that were reported, otherwise the real numbers would be
in thousands. Eight of those 21 children died. But there was no law to protect them or to
provide them safeguard.
In order to protect the rights of the domestic workers, a bill was passed in the senate in
2013, which was called as the Domestic Workers (Employment Rights) Act 2013.
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Although, it was a very good initiative, but it fell a victim to typical government
proceedings as well. This bill was supposed to be passed by senate and then applied in
ICT, after which provinces were supposed to apply this as well. This bill made it
compulsory for the domestic workers to enter into a written agreement which would help
in safeguarding their rights. It provided many other clauses to protect the rights of CDL.
However, this bill failed to specify the penalties regarding any violations. Furthermore,
this bill is still pending and moreover, even if it is passed, it would be applicable in ICT
only. Due to 18th amendment, the provinces will have to approve it separately.
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3. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
3.1. CONCLUSION
We have failed to see any major developments by the government that could contribute to
curbing child labor in Pakistan. We do not even have the correct number of children
engulfed by child labor, as the survey which was scheduled to be conducted in 2013 has
not been conducted yet. This is a disaster in a way that the policy makers are unable to
gauge the exact magnitude of child labor. The data that is available is either provided by
international organizations or just an estimation. Moreover, the non-availability of
provincially disaggregated data is problematic, especially after 18th Amendment where
the provinces are empowered to construct their own laws against child labor.
Pakistan has not signed or implemented several of the international conventions, like ILO
Domestic Worker Convention. This particular convention is need of the hour, as in
previous few years we have seen a lot of cases of domestic violence by elite or middle
class.
Although the provinces are taking actions on their own, they need to expedite things.
Punjab government has recently taken a very good initiative where The Punjab
Restriction of Employment of Children Act 2015 is all set to be passed. Rest of the
provinces need to take some steps as well. Rural areas need special attention where
bonded labor takes place and poverty prevails. Furthermore, top down efforts by the state
should be bolstered with bottom up deployment campaigns to inform people of the
negative impacts of child labor and the magnitude of its pervasiveness in Pakistan.
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3.2. RECOMMENDATIONS
1. Steps should be taken on provincial level to expedite legislative measures
regarding child labor.
2. Pakistan should sign and ratify all the international conventions and
agreements regarding child labor, specifically, the ILO Domestic Workers
Convention.
3. Provincial governments should hire specialized child labor inspectors to
monitor any violations. The inspectors should be properly trained and should
know the necessary legal provisions.
4. Any new regulation should be in accordance with ILO conventions ratified by
government.
5. Informal sector should be properly monitored and regulated, as this is the
sector which employees the largest number of child labor.
6. Relief camps for bonded labors should be set up and funded by the
government. Moreover, basic comforts of life should be made available.
7. Immediately conduct a survey for child labor to realize the true picture of the
disaster.
8. There should be proper coordination between the provincial and national
government regarding the steps taken to eradicate child labor.
9. Increase the size and scope of the currently ongoing government programs.
10. Raise awareness regarding child labor in every area of Pakistan, especially
rural areas.
11. Special emphasize should be given to education sector and it should be made
sure that every child gets education.
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4. REFERENCES
Basu, K. (1999). Child labor: cause, consequence, and cure, with remarks on international
labor standards. Journal of Economic literature, 1083-1119.
Maternal and child health : Guidelines / Afghan Refugee Health Programme Pakistan.
(n.d.).
Pakistan: A step‐child of the west. (n.d.). The Round Table, 395-398.
Silvers, J. (1996). Child labor in Pakistan. The Atlantic Monthly, 17(2).
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