Monday, July 07, 2014

Child Labour in Pakistan

Poverty in Pakistan has forced more than 12 million children to involve in child labour, according to Pakistan Bureau Statistics Labour Force Survey. The number of child labour is much higher as the Labour Force survey does not take economically active children below 10-year of age into account.

Nighat Malik, a social worker engaged with Society of Education Welfare, said: "Unregulated system of our nation, poverty and high illiteracy rate led our children to work like 'animals'.

Rising food and fuel prices and a struggling economy have forced many families to send their children to search for work instead of going to schools. Rasheeda, a housemaid and a mother of child labour said: "Due to shortage of food and money, we cannot bear the expenses of school fees, so I stopped my children from going school and asked them to work in motorcycle shop to run our kitchen."

Basically, labouring is of two types. Firstly, child is involved in hazardous work that exposes to physical, psychological and sexual abuse; work in unhealthy environment that may expose children to hazardous substances, temperature, noises, vibration; and under particular conditions such as long hours or during the night." Secondly, children who did not work at all and only prefer on begging. Resulting in 95 percent of children reported disturbed sleep, 40 percent reported physical punishment by elders and parents, 40 percent dislike the work they do, 

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