KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly on Wednesday passed a unanimous bill on ‘Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children’ in which children under the age of 14 years will not be given employment at any place of work in the province. The assembly session started at around 11:30am with Deputy Speaker Shehla Raza in the chair.
After being passed by the Sindh Assembly, the Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children Bill will impose serious restrictions on giving the employment to underage workers that will be strictly enforced across the province. According to the draft of the bill, children under the age of 14 years will not be given any kind of employment in Sindh and those who violate the law will be given six months of prison and a fine of Rs 50,000. Those who give employment to children in dangerous working areas will have to face a sentence of three years imprisonment and Rs 100,000 as a fine.
During the session, the Pakistan Peoples’ Party’s (PPP) parliamentary leader, Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, introduced the bill and discussed in detail the pros and cons of the draft. He said child labour in Pakistan was an old issue – before the 18th Amendment, it was a federal issue but now it is the provincial government’s responsibility and all necessary legislation should be conducted by the province to curb it. The Sindh government is working on a law to curb and protect the victimisation of children at work and no one can take advantage of poverty.
Khuhro recalled the case of a child named Tayyaba, whose torture was highlighted in the media. The bill would benefit all those financially deprived children who are working in factories, mills, and other dangerous places of hard labour. ‘Greedy’ people always look for an opportunity to take advantage of helplessness and of the weak. He informed the session that they were drafting such a law that could protect these financially deprived children and no one take advantage of their poverty.
They had not sent this bill to the standing committee because they wished to avoid delay and directly tabled the bill on the assembly floor to pass it as early as possible.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM-P) lawmaker, Syed Sardar Ahmed, praised the bill and noted it is no doubt very important and the entire house will support this bill. However, it is the reality that despite the children victimised at workplaces, all those children who work as domestic servants were also beaten and subject to torture and therefore should be included in the bill.
The PPP parliamentary leader Nisar Khuhro said another bill would be presented in the House soon and the Sindh government was also going to bring all necessary laws with regard to child labour.
PML-F’s Nusrat Sehar Abbasi announced her support for the bill and said this was the need of the hour. PPP and MQM lawmakers, Ghazala Sial and Heer Ismail Soho, also appreciated the bill and said that this would ensure protection of the rights of children and curb their victimization.