Children in Pakistan are forced to engage in domestic labour, which is one of the worst forms of child labour. The law does not prevent children from working inside homes as domestic workers in the country. Due to this, children have suffered at the hands of their cruel employers, their “masters” for many years.
The usual response of the citizens upon hearing brutal cases of significant child abuse is to trend a hashtag on Twitter, asking for justice for the child. Recently, a hashtag, “#JusticeForZohraShah,” trended on Twitter. However, trending a hashtag on Twitter will neither save the children nor provide them with any justice. This is evident from the fact that many hashtags have trended in the past, where a minor, working as a domestic worker, was abused and killed and yet children continue to suffer. To prevent this from happening, the government needs to take appropriate actions urgently. The government is aware of the situation as the minister of human rights, Shireen Mazari, had stated, “The biggest problem is that there is no law protecting domestic labour, including rights of children.”
It is a sad situation that despite acknowledging the misery of children, the government has not taken any urgent action to prevent such cases. Last week, Zohra Shah suffered the same fate that several children had suffered before her. The eight-year-old was allegedly killed for freeing her employer’s bird from a cage. Police officials have stated that they have recovered videos, from the phone of her employers of the minor being tortured. They added that, among the videos, they also found an image of the minor locked up inside the birdcage as a punishment. Many children have suffered torment before Zohra.
In 2019, Uzma, a 15-year-old girl, was beaten to death for stealing a bite of food. Her body was found in a drain. She lost her life having suffered indescribable torture and abuse.
In 2018, Kinza, an 11-year-old girl was severely abused. She was beaten with belts and wires for two years by an army official. The minister of human rights, having been tagged in several tweets, responded in 2018, “Already looking into it…we are also in the process of drafting a comprehensive domestic workers protection bill.”
She added further that the bill would include banning child labour. Despite her assurances, no such law was enacted, if it had, it could’ve saved Zohra Shah’s life. And yet she gave the statement again 2020; stating that no law protecting domestic labour existed in Pakistan.
In 2017, Tayyaba, a 10-year-old, suffered indescribable abuse by a former additional sessions judge and his wife. Reports of settlement between the offenders and parents of the minor girl surfaced. The supreme court took a suo moto notice of the deplorable agreement, stating that “No agreements can be reached in matters concerning fundamental human rights.”
Many hashtags have trended in the past, where a minor, working as a domestic worker, was abused and killed and yet children continue to suffer
Nevertheless, the culprits were only sentenced to a year in jail due to the loopholes that exist in the system.
The fundamental rights are provided to the citizens of Pakistan in the supreme law, the constitution. While Article 11 of the constitution states that slavery is forbidden and could not be permitted or facilitated through any law, Article 11 (3) explicitly states that’ No child below the age of fourteen years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment.” Article 37 (e) further states that “the state shall make provision for securing just and humane conditions of work, ensuring that children… are not employed in vocations unsuited to their age.”
Furthermore, Article 25A provides that, ”the State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years.” A parent receiving compensation by an employer for sending their child to work as a domestic worker is a deplorable situation that restricts a child from exercising their fundamental right to an education. It should be prohibited under all circumstances.
Despite that, child labour is very normalised in Pakistan. Secretary of the Ministry of Human Rights, Rabiya Agha, stated that’ ‘the constitution only restricts child labour till the age of 14 years. The first thing we must do is revisit the definition of a child in the Constitution of Pakistan to fix this discrepancy through legal intervention.” Ms Agha further stated, ”Pakistan is a signatory to Convention on Rights of the Child (CRC) in which the definition of a child is under 16, and Pakistan is legally bound to follow it.”
According to the report of the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), 3.3 million children are involved in child labour in the country. A heart-breaking situation. Judges, doctors and army officials have employed young children, punishing them by brutalising them and killing them. There is an acceptance for the exploitation of children in Pakistan. It is a deplorable situation and has normalised in the country and children need to be escaped from it.
The government has failed to act urgently, despite acknowledgement of the brutal cases stemming from exploitation of children from domestic work. No laws explicitly outlawing children from working as a domestic worker have been enacted by the government to avoid such cases from stemming, despite acknowledgement made by the Ministry of Human Rights of Pakistan.
While one might try to justify child labour due to the economic situation of the country or the financial circumstances of the parents who force their child to work as domestic help, there can never be any justification about any form of abuse on children. Generally, while employing children as young as five years old, the excuse that the employers give is that they’re only helping the minors by paying them for their services, otherwise, they will starve, and that they’re only taking care of them. However, employing minors isn’t the only way of taking care of the children. There are other ways, such as, rather than employing them as a domestic worker, they could employ their parents and offer them at least their basic minimum wage, donate to their families and/or charitable organisations for food, adopt a child, etc. Nevertheless, many choose to exploit them and harm them while portraying themselves as a saint, who “saved” them.
Pakistan needs to immediately put mechanisms into place to prevent minors from working as domestic help. Strong reforms are needed, confining with the international conventions of children rights. If reforms had been introduced earlier, a lot of children could have been saved from torture and losing their lives. This brutality can still be prevented from occurring in the future. It is time the government of Pakistan took action on an urgent basis.
Barrister of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn and teach United States constitutional law and civil law to Pakistani LLB students