"Every child should be in school and enjoy childhood” maybe a dream for most but for M.V.Foundation it is a reality they strive to achieve. I want to share my views with reference to Harris Khalique’s article ‘Khushi Mohammed’ (June 24). Child labour is a global phenomenon and exists in both developing and under-developed countries.
In Pakistan, 8 to 10 million children work. Then, we also have a large number of children who cannot go to school due to financial problems.
Almost all child labour occurs in developing countries, with about 60% engaged in agriculture. Other occupations include domestic service, factory production and backstreet workshops.
The darkest category of child labour relates to those children caught up in criminal activities such as prostitution, military enrolment, slavery (such as bonded labour), or trafficking (which involves the removal of a child from its home, often involving deception and payment, for a wide range of exploitative purposes).
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| Stop Child Labouring |
| God has given human beings the boon of wisdom and discretion to think upon the signs of the universe and to draw conclusions. That is the reason why they disclose the hidden facts of it and its structure and have made remarkable progress in many walks of life. Children are the flowers of heaven. They are the most beautiful and purest creation of God. They are innocent both inwardly and outwardly. No doubt, they are the beauty of this world. Early in the morning when the children put on different kinds of clothes and begin to go to schools for the sake of knowledge, we feel a specific kind of joy through their innocence. |
“Child Labour” is generally speaking work for children that harms them or exploits them in some way (physically, mentally, morally or blocking access to education),
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund(UNICEF) defines “child” as anyone below the age of 18, and “child Labour” as some type of work performed by children below age 18. (UNICEF)
 | Child Labour is an important and a serious global issue through which all and sundry countries of the world are directly or indirectly affected, but, it is very common in Latin America, Africa and Asia. According to some, in several Asian countries’ 1/10 manpower consists of child Labour. In India the number of children between the ages of 10-14 has crossed above 44 million, in Pakistan this number is from 8 to 10 million, in Bangladesh 8-12 million, in Brazil 7 million, whereas their number is 12 million in Nigeria. |
In Pakistan children aged 5-14 are above 40 million.During the last year, the Federal Bureau of Statistics released the results of its survey funded by ILO’s IPEC (International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour). The findings were that 3.8 million children age group of 5-14 years are working in Pakistan out of total 40 million children in this age group; fifty percent of these economically active children are in age group of 5 to 9 years. Even out of these 3.8 million economically active children, 2.7 million were claimed to be working in the agriculture sector. Two million and four hundred thousand (73%) of them were said to be boys.
Pakistan has recently passed laws greatly limiting child labor and indentured servitude—but those laws are universally ignored, and some 11 milion children, aged four to fourteen, keep that country's factories operating, often working in brutal and squalid conditions
Policy considerations for ending child labor in Pakistan
If people want us to go to school instead of work, they must give us the money to do so and make schools better. Then we would stop stitching. Who wants to injure their fingers?"
-An out-of school working girl in Pakistan
This brief statement summarizes the challenge Pakistan faces in eliminating its problem of child labor. The millions of children who work to support their families in often hazardous conditions and cannot go to school do so for a number of reasons. If Pakistan's leaders and policy makers are serious about developing a strategy that seeks to end child labor, it must take a number of factors into account. There is no one easy solution.
