LAHORE: The Punjab government conducted raids on 27,465 brick kilns, arrested around 1,116 owners of 1,565 kilns and registered cases against them while sealing 246 kilns for violating the child labour laws. Under the Child Labor Act, 70,828 organisations were inspected and 778 owners were arrested in 2,470 cases.

These figures were revealed by Punjab Minister for Labour Ansar Majeed Khan Niazi on the World Day against Child Labour. He said the Punjab government was coming up with a comprehensive survey on the child labour in collaboration with Unicef.

Rights bodies seek more steps by govt

The minister condemned depriving innocent children from their right to education and leisure and forcing them to do labour, saying it was a serious crime. He stressed upon society to play its due role in stopping the practice.

Child labour has decreased remarkably since 2000 but that gain is now at risk as millions of children may be forced to work due to the Covid-19 crisis. This could lead to the first rise in child labour after 20 years of progress, according to a new brief from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Unicef.

Globally there are estimated 152m children in child labour, 72m of which are in hazardous work, according to the ILO.

The Grassroot Organisation for Human Development (GoDH), an organisation working with gypsies, has released a letter in solidarity with children, especially those who are marginalised, and appealed to the government to implement special mechanism for the social protection for children with disabilities, street children, working children, children in refugee camps, in alternative care homes, and those who are in rehabilitation homes against human trafficking.

The representatives of GoDH say Pakistan is a member state of the ILO Convention 138 and immediate action must be taken to ensure protection of the children involved in domestic labour.

Besides, GoDH suggested the government must come up with counselling for children, especially those affected by Covid, directly or indirectly, by introducing a helpline; deal with the complaints and the issues of sexual abuse against children during lockdown; conducting a crackdown on child pornography and cybercrime; ensuring child-friendly services during the lockdown; planning more educational programmes and showing them on the mainstream media and managing food, health, and security services for children of daily wage labourers and children whose families are below the poverty line and children working in child labour.

Both GoDH and the Child Rights Movement (an umbrella of civil society organisations) pushed for improving the Punjab Child Domestic Labour Act 2019 and urged the government to increase the cut off age for labour to 18 years.

“For an employer of a child domestic labourer, the punishment ranges from imprisonment for a month to being fined Rs10,000 to Rs50,000,” specified Iftikhar Mubarik. “But it needs to be revisited so that there is writ of law.”

Rashida Qureshi, the provincial coordinator CRM, says the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child had urged for eradication of child labour in Pakistan but this is far from being done. .

A conference held by CRM on Friday demanded a more comprehensive approach towards the issue of child labour.

The lockdown and the resultant economic and labour crisis have impacted children adversely, pushing millions of vulnerable children into labour.

Published in Dawn, June 13th, 2020