Daily Times

KARACHI: Initiator Human Development Foundation (IHDF), a nonprofit organisation working on the provision of education to underprivileged children, with the support of Child Rights Movement Sindh (CRMS), a network of 88 organisations devoted to creating enabling environment for children through collective advocacy, held a demonstration on the occasion of World Day against Child Labour at Karachi Press Club.

Wold Day against Child Labor is observed every year on June 12 to raise awareness about the plight of child laborers worldwide. In Pakistan, World Day against Child was observed on Tuesday with the theme of eliminating child labor in Pakistan.

The protest was organised to highlight the issue of child labor in Pakistan. According to a survey in Pakistan, approximately 13 million children are the victims of child labor.

At the protest, IHDF president Rana Asif Habib said that there was still a question mark about the implementation of Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children Act 2017.

He said that he first and only survey conducted by International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1996, revealed that 3.3 million children were involved in child labor and over 60% of the people in Pakistan were living under poverty line.

Rana Asif Habib said that 25 million children were out of school and, in Sindh alone, 6.2 million children were not going to school. He added that the number of labor inspectors was negligible and this was posing a hindrance in the implementation of the Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children Act 2017.

Asif Habib said that according to Article 25 (A) of constitution it was the right of every child aged 5-16 to get free education.

Pointing out that Pakistan had no law to protect children involved in domestic labour, Rana Asif Habib announced that IHDF will launch a nationwide campaign to abolish domestic child labor.

Initiator street school’s child rights club members were also present in the protest.

Participants from all walks of life attended the protest. The protestors said that no country could prosper without eliminating child labor from society.

Child Rights Movement CRM coordinator Sindh Kashif Bajeer said that child labour and children in modern day slavery continued to remain manifest problems within the context of Pakistan.

Referring to the 2014-15 Labor Force Survey, Kashif Bajeer said that there were 3.70 million children, between the ages of 10-17 in the workforce, out of which 1.64 million were engaged in hazardous work.

He said that earlier estimates from 2010-11 Labor Force Survey had revealed that 5.7 million 10-17 year olds were in the workforce. He added that, in the absence of a nationwide survey, these numbers were mere estimates and actual figures were believed to be higher.

Bajeer said that the Global Slavery Index, 2016 estimated that 2.1 million people in Pakistan were living under slavery. He added that this constituted a significant proportion of children engaged in modern-day slavery.

Bajeer highlighted the need for civil society organizations to address the issues of child labor through innovative measures in advocacy and service delivery to maximize their impact.

He asserted that integrated government poverty alleviation measures including shifts in micro-economic and macro-economic policies were needed to eliminate the problems of poverty which saliently caused child labor.

Towards the end of the protest, children participated in a theater performance to highlight how poverty and lack of awareness led to child labor and child marriage.

Published in Daily Times, June 13^th 2018.