The perils of child labour

A child labourer is one who works at early age to meet his or her necessities. Child labour has escalated worldwide. The reason is not only poverty but also negligence, unemployment, lack of education, overpopulation, environmental destruction like floods or earthquakes, migration, among others. A study by UNICEF estimated 158 million children in the world are part of the labour market, which includes wage labour, domestic, non-domestic and non-monetary work. Child labour includes girls and boys who have been working since their childhood either being distant from their homes or living in the streets because of homelessness. As a result of this children who are facing violence in heir homes are likely to leave them. These are hired by different mafias and militant wings for forced labour work. Pakistan is ranked 154^th out of 181 countries in the Global Children Rights Index. Another private survey reported that there are 1.5 million treet children in Pakistan. The report by UNICEF (2017) stated that 16 percent of children aged from 5 to 17, engage in labour work and are more vulnerable to abuse.

The children from worst financial strata or populated household are forced to earn their livelihood or they often belong to the families that live and sleep on the streets around the town or at the garbage dump. To fulfill the basic needs of food and other necessities, they work for minimal wages in an unfriendly and tough environment. More worrisome is they have to sometimes eat unhygienic and inedible food from garbage dumps to satisfy hunger which makes them more vulnerable to, and exposed to, harmful diseases.

Moreover, orphan children are coerced into work out of home for monetary purpose because they alone have to work to survive. They prefer shoe-shining, car-cleaning or hawking on the roads and streets, auto-repair shop work, stations, markets, garbage dumping points, brick kilns, farm fields, small industries, domestic services and carpet weaving, or garbage-carrying, where they can be e hired easily in cheapest wages. Mostly children works in manufacturing and different industries like tobacco. The industries avail their services at a low cost and work them hard.

The youth has vast social activism through digital platforms. Through citizen’s journalism, social media platforms can monitor the issues of vulnerable or victim children at all levels of society to let them know what is child labour and how to mitigate it

More worryingly, underprivileged families sell their child to fulfill their financial necessities. As a result, these kids are misused by mafias or gangs for begging and other harmful acts like prostitution or slavery or sometimes non-state actors use them for accomplishing their nefarious designs of terrorism. Boys who work and live on streets become a hit with militant organizations by shaping their personality as deadliest suicide attackers. They are also involved in the exchange of drugs, abduction and other crimes.

Further, the entire situation seems more complex for girls. They are appointed as fulltime maids in houses where the employer regards them as property and violates basic children’s rights, harasses them physically and mentally which often results in death. In 2019, Uzma, a 16-year-old maid, working for 8 months, had been killed brutally by her female employers owing to her eating a meal. Another maid, a 10-year-old girl Tayyaba, working as domestic helper, was found injured from the house of session judge Raja Khurram Ali. This is awful behaviour by our educated people.

The children are the builders of the future; if they survive, the nation will move forward. At present, we must proceed with serious initiatives to eradicate the curse of child labour. There are a few practices which can be useful to adopt.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is an underdeveloped country with overpopulation. Our citizens do not esteem child in their care. This aspect is totally ignored in the children having no or worst background. The time sa come to look back towards kids who are neglected in society. If you are financially stable, invest in the needs of these kids to boost the future of Pakistan.

Pakistan has a young population in which about 445,000 students graduate yearly. These graduate can put their efforts voluntarily by implementing the “each one, teach one” theory of Nobel Peace Laureate Malala Yousufzai. For this purpose, promoting reading and writing campaigns must be started individually. Political parties prefer the active participation of youth wings. These wings can influence to promulgate special legislation for child labour rights and their special education (Which could give an opportunity to get free and quality education). Our educated youth can start counselling programmes for supporting the self-development theme among them by which they would be able to share their concerns. They can provide also parents counselling to eliminate them.

Civil society can conduct workshops and awareness campaigns, which can play a vital role to let them be cognizant about their rights. By knowing workplace harassment, physical and mental abuses, they will be able to identify the gangs or mafias that hire them for extreme-level crime, such as prostitution, because they are accessible targets.

Every child has the right to access resources of education. Therefore, those children who are helping out families or themselves to earn a livelihood must be encouraged to attend school. Flexible hours and days may help to enroll a large number of kids into schools. Special technical education assistance with proper toolkits should be provided. These trainees must be further funded for their personal startups.

Media is now the fourth pillar of the state. To rehabilitate them, the media can enforce government and child protection organizations for implementation on legislations. Everyone should comply with the law and not incite anyone to break it. Influential people can be approached for using their power to force industrialists to arrange special shelter, educational and health facilities mandatory for children.

The youth has vast social activism through digital platforms. Through citizen’s journalism, social media platforms can monitor the issues of vulnerable or victim children at all levels of society to let them know what is child labour and how to mitigate it.