Daily Times

Pakistan is rated as being at extreme risk in terms of child labour and ranks amongst the top 10 countries (out of 197) where child labour is most prevalent, according to the Child Labour Index Report released by Maplecroft, a global risk analytics, research and strategy forecasting company. The US labour department’s findings on the worst forms of child labour said that in 2013, Pakistan made moderate advances in an effort to eliminate child labour compared to none the year before. Child labour is an important and serious global issue by which all countries are directly or indirectly affected, but it is very common in Latin America, Africa and Asia. According to estimates, in several Asian countries, a 10th of the manpower is child labour. In India, the number of labourers between the ages of 10 and 14 has crossed over 44 million. In Pakistan, this number is between eight and 10 million, in Bangladesh it is eight to 12 million, in Brazil seven million and in Nigeria 12 million. There are about 34 hazardous occupations where child labour is found in Pakistan like agriculture, brick kilns, carpet weaving, auto workshops, surgical goods manufacturing, rag and garbage picking, moulding, cotton picking, coal mining, truck cleaning, working as tea boys and domestic workers, in ceramics, soap making, machine manufacturing, steel fabrication, power, refineries, gas processing and leather production.

The word child produces the picture of an infant, a toddler, or even a 10-year-old playing and enjoying life. In legal terms, a child is described as being under 14 years of age. The difference between employment and a contract for employment is simple. A contract labourer is working for the contractor who in turn gets paid a lump sum by the employer. The employer is the person who makes an agreement with a contractor to supply labour. The employer is not bothered about payment to the workers who work for the contractor. The contractor appoints the workers either temporarily or permanently and pays them their wages. In effect, the worker is executing the work entrusted to the contractor by the employer.

It is one thing to prohibit child labour but what children should do when they are not engaged in child labour is another matter altogether. If a child labourer is found and he is asked to stop being such, it is within the purview of the law. However, the same child cannot be forced into something else such as going to school. Suppose a child does not want to go to school, can the law force him to go to school? If parents do not want the child to go to school for reasons best known to them, can the government force either the parent or the child to enrol? Who is assuming the role of moral guide here? Who created public opinion against the idea of doing something other than going to school? How come going to school is the only thing made mandatory for a 14-year-old adolescent? Public opinion has been created, established and transformed into a virtual law that rather than work, a 14-year-old should go to school.

The word school is something that is considered an all-in-one solution. It is assumed that the school located in the area is a good school where morals are taught in addition to languages, arithmetic and civics. It is certainly not a place where the adolescent will learn the trade in which his parents are engaged. The school does not teach the adolescent the intricacies of raising a crop of wheat, for example. It does not teach how to irrigate the fields, plough the fields, sow the seeds, water the plants or harvest the wheat. It teaches him or her how to write sentences, how to do calculations and about health, civic duties, history and geography.

He is cut off from the entire process of earning a livelihood with the family. His love for labour or for the occupation of his parents gets no support, no encouragement. Agriculture is a very common occupation that is lost to the next generation. Actually, the next generation is losing out on a large number of fine crafts and arts that their parents could have taught them, keeping arts and crafts alive as a cultural heritage. It is not easy for a parent to bring his graduate son into the family business that requires only an elementary education. How frustrated are the parents to be unable to induct their own children into the careers they themselves took up when they turned 14? A weaver, a carpenter, a launderer, a cook, a priest, a dancer, a singer, a drama actor, a cinema actor and so many others would love to have their children work alongside them in their professions and learn the trade of their family. But instead, public opinion is all for sending them to ill-defined, badly managed schools. In these schools, adolescents stay for years, gathering moss. Public opinion assumes every village child drawn away from their parents’ trade could become a management guru or the head of a multinational if he or she goes to school.

For a parent who is an employee and not a self-employed person like an agriculturist, a shopkeeper, a craftsman or a professional, the only choice given is to send their child to school rather than send them for work, even the kind of work where they learn the trade of their preference. If adolescents are allowed to work for a salary or other remuneration, in a position where they gain experience and expertise to become engaged in that trade themselves in due course, then they would be better able to manage their family and lives, rather than wasting their precious adolescent years in schools where they get bored with the subjects taught and examinations passed. The only possible solution is to make education compulsory and allow children the time to engage in their parents’ craft.

The writer is a social and political activist based in Lahore and he can be reached at salmanali088@gmail.com