CHILD labour and the mental health issues associated with it are amongst our most pressing challenges. The psychological effects of child labour can be more intense than its physical ramifications. Although the government here recognises it as a social peril, not much effort is being put into investigating child labour’s impact on a young worker’s social and behavioural development. Consequently, many child workers are deprived of psychosocial support and counselling when they suffer abuse, exploitation and periods of long-term isolation from family and peers.

An ILO report (2021) found that 69.4 per cent of children worked in agriculture, followed by 19.7pc in the services sector and another 10.9pc in industry. Children engaged in these sectors from an early age spend long hours at work, deprived of their right to spend quality time with their families and peers. These long hours prevent them from building a healthy relationship with friends and family and turn them into insecure adults at risk of developing serious emotional problems.

Many child domestic workers and brick kiln workers, away from their home and community, suffer sexual exploitation and emotional abuse that ignite feelings of depression, shame, hopelessness, abandonment and low self-esteem in them. These children are more prone to mental illness. It is up to the government to come up with and implement strong measures to combat mental health problems identified in children engaged in labour.

The law and policy discourse on child labour in Pakistan overlooks the substantially higher psychological risks compared to the physical perils faced by working children. The laws on child labour, such as the Employment of Children Act, 1991, and the Punjab Restriction of Employment Act, 2016, refer to “hazardous work”, which includes exposure to toxins with psychosocial effects. One wonders why psychosocial factors do not get the attention they deserve during the formulation of law and policy related to child labour. The existing law and policy framework on child labour does not address the emotional outcomes of unreasonable expectations of work productivity and lack of encouragement and support given to children involved in labour. Nor does it address rebuke and punishment for failure to perform tasks in a timely and efficient manner.

The emotional trauma young workers go through is often ignored.

Search for Justice, an NGO working on reforming the law and policy landscape on child rights in Pakistan, is among the few organisations working towards providing psychosocial support to victims of child abuse. It has taken on board child psychologists and clinical experts to provide counselling and psychological support to abused children. However, support from the government is required to ensure that the psychological and behavioural counselling needs of working children are fully met.

In order to assess the extent of the psychological damage that arduous child labour has done, the government in collaboration with the labour department must develop an instrument for examining key dimensions of child workers’ well-being. The labour department, Child Protection and Welfare Bureau and civil society organisations such as Search for Justice and Sparc should conduct surveys, observations, and structured interviews with children, employers and parents, besides holding focus group discussions and using child behaviour checklists, to find out about children’s work situation and its impact on their mental well-being.

The psychological well-being of a child worker can also be ensured through the provision of free legal assistance to those victims who have been harassed and traumatised while wor­king in factories, brick kilns or households as domestic worke­­rs. Chil­d­ren en­­gaged in labour, between the age bracket of 10 to 14 years, face physical and psychological violence in factories, brick kilns, restaurants and households. The law fails to cater for such children.

In cases where children come in contact with the law as it applies to them, they find the process and proceedings daunting and distressing. They find it difficult to communicate and share their feelings with adults, they mistrust the police and judges, they have inadequate or zero understanding of the legal processes and their implications, and, most of the time, they face discrimination owing to their young age and social factors.

The government should set up proper psychosocial support within child protection bureaus in all the provinces. Child welfare organisations should ensure concrete legal support for children by hiring lawyers or engaging them on a pro bono basis. This way the relevant stakeholders including government departments and civil society organisations will play their part in providing legal assistance to exploited young workers and help them heal emotionally from the trauma that child labour inevitably brings.

The writer is a development consultant based in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2022