Voice of the People

Child labour

According to ILO, Child Labour is defined as work that has the potential to deprive children of their child hood. It will have bad impact on their physical, moral and mental development. Without any doubt child labour is one of the most ignored issues in our country. The age-ratio of these child labourers is between 5 to 14 years old. According to the recent survey held by the Federal Bureau of Statistics, there are approximately 40 million child labourers in Pakistan. It means that nearly half of the children are working and are the victims of child labour in Pakistan. The Principles of Policy enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan provide for providing free education and removing illiteracy throughout the country. In many cases, parents of these children couldn’t afford to educate their children. However, statistics also shows people mostly employ those children who cannot afford the expenses of schools and the cycle of poverty continues. There is an acute need to do every possible effort to eliminate this curse from its roots. There are already constitutional provisions pertaining to child labour. According to Article 11 (3) of Pakistan’s Constitution, No child below the age of 14 years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment. Moreover, Article 25(A) also states that “The state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children from the age of five to sixteen years in such manner as determined by law”. Children in Pakistan still work in many industries suffer from serious injuries which sometimes cause death and moreover they miss the chance of enjoying their childhood. Most of them do not go to school and are deprived of basic educational facilities. I urge the government of Pakistan to implement Article 11(3) and 25(A) as soon as possible in order to eradicate this menace and start more educational projects to provide free education to those children, whose parents cannot afford the educational expenses. — Karachi