ISLAMABAD: Police in Lahore have arrested a woman for beating to death her 10-year-old maid after accusing the girl of stealing a few rupees, less than a dollar's worth.

The girl died on Thursday, after her employer had brought her to hospital.

Police official Mohammed Yousaf says the doctors alerted the police after seeing signs of abuse and torture on the girl's body. Later, the woman confessed to killing her maid with a steel pipe.

Child labor is common in Pakistan, which has no legislation setting a minimum age for work.

Children — mostly from extremely poor and illiterate families — are commonly employed in households for domestic work and often exposed to verbal, physical and sexual abuse.