Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Chairperson National Commission on Status of Women Khawar Mumtaz Saturday said comprehensive legislation is imperative to protect children from social evils and incidents.

Sharing her remarks about certain domestic labour issues, she said unfortunately there is no specific law in the Constitution, particularly ensuring rights of domestic or home-based workers.

Legislation on child labour did not apparently address issue of domestic workers as all age groups are involved in it, she told APP.

She said specific cases related to violence on children involved in domestic work were reported in the past which pointed out a number of social ills like domestic violence, minor domestic labour, fundamental right of child education and child trafficking.

She said it is also worth mentioning that Article 25 (A) provides free and compulsory secondary education as fundamental right for children but these cases reveal that some children are still out of schools.

Furthermore she said, some poor people living in far flung and slum areas, send their children for domestic work through agents.

The issue is also related to ‘trafficking’ in some sense as these agents without giving details of children workplace to their parents’ take them to other cities and there is no direct contact of these children with their families, she added.

These agents are not registered anywhere besides that they are not answerable to anyone so this loophole is a lacuna being misused by these agents, she said.

The chairperson further said after legislation, the second crucial step is proper implementation of child labour and domestic violence laws.

She further said a proper monitoring mechanism is also obligatory to check the welfare of children and any violation in this regard should be reported at a proper forum.

NCSW head further asked that under the Ministry of Human Rights a help-line 1099 is working to provide free legal aid to people so any violation should be reported there for taking legal action against those who hire such children.

She said people of slum areas should also be sensitized to avail this facility to get any information before sending their family member to work or facing trouble in getting information about their whereabouts in case of no contact with them.