Child Labour means the employment of children in any kind of work that hampers their physical and mental development, deprives them of their basic educational and recreational requirements. A large number of children are compelled to work in various hazardous and non-hazardous activities such as in the agriculture sector, glass factories, carpet industry, brass industries, matchbox factories, and as domestic help. It is a blot on our society and speaks immensely about the inability of our society to provide a congenial environment for the growth and development of children.

Child labour is an intricate issue especially for developing countries like Pakistan where there is no protection for people’s rights, leave alone children’s rights. ‘According to the United Nations, children employed under the age of 18 would fall under the definition of child labour. This phenomenon is very common in third world or developing countries. It is very common to see small children (young boys) working at workshops, restaurants, industries, mills, shops, service stations, etc. in such countries. On the other hand, young girls are mostly involved in domestic work.

Child labour is widely practiced throughout the world and deprives the children of their childhood, education and other growth opportunities. Children are forced to engage in hazardous working conditions to support their families by supplementing its income.

They work under a verbal or written contract between their employer and parents. Sometimes, it is to repay a debt taken by their families from the employer. Child labour is more common in developing and under developed nations. Poverty is the main driving factor behind the child labour as the children are forced into child labour by their own families in order to fend for their everyday requirements for food and other necessities.

There are many strict laws against child labour in the world and many countries including Pakistan have norms of imprisonment and fine if a person and organization is found involved in child labour. Despite all the laws, still there is a need to forcibly implement them if we want the child labour to be eliminated.

There are a number of factors that contribute to the rise of this peril.

Poverty plays a major role in the issues of child labour. In poor families, children are considered to be an extra earning hand. These families believe that every child is a bread-earner and so they have more children. As these children grow up, they are expected to share their parents’ responsibilities.

Illiteracy is an important factor that contributes to this problem. The illiterate parents think that education is a burden because they need to invest more in comparison to the returns that they get in the form of earnings from their children. Child labourers are exposed to unhygienic conditions, late working hours, and different enormities, which have a direct effect on their cognitive development. The tender and immature minds of the children are not able to cope with such situations leading to emotional and physical distress.

Unethical employers also prefer child labourers to adults because they canextract more work from them and pay a lesser amount of wage. Bonded child labour is the harshest act of child labour. In this type of child labour, the children are made to work to pay off a loan or a debt of the family. Bonded labour has also led to the trafficking of these impoverished children from rural to urban areas in order to work as domestic help or in small production houses or just to lead the life of street beggars.

Despite the strict law about child labour being a crime, it is still widely prevalent in Pakistan and many other countries worldwide. Greedy and crooked employers also lack awareness of human rights and government policies among the people below poverty.

Children in certain mining operations and industries are a cheap source of labour, and the employers get away with it because of corruption in the bureaucracy. Sometimes low-income families may also ignore basic human rights and send their children to earn extra money. It is a systemic problem that needs to be solved by addressing issues at many levels.

The government has a very important role to play in the eradication of child labour. As poverty is the major cause of child labour in our country, the government should give assurance to provide the basic amenities to the lower strata of our society. There should be an equal distribution of wealth. More work opportunities need to be generated to give fair employment to the poor. The various NGOs across the nation should come forward and provide vocational training to these people in order to jobs or to make them self-employed.

This lower stratum of our society should understand and believe in the importance of education. The government and the NGOs should reach out to such people to raise awareness and initiate free education for all children between the age group of 6-14 years. The parents must be encouraged to send their children to schools instead of work.

Below are some probable solutions to avoid the issue of child labor:

1. Constructing new unions might benefit in stopping child labor since it will inspire more people to support against the point of child labor.
2. The parents should consider the education of their children as the priority from their childhood. In this movement, the schools should also cooperate by providing free education to the children without any obstruction.

iii. There should be a high level of social awareness regarding child labor with the accurate statistics of enormous damage in the future for any emerging nation.

1. Every single family should earn their minimum earnings with the purpose of surviving and preventing the problem of child labor. It will also decrease the number of people living below the poverty line in the country which ultimately reduces the child labor cause.
2. There is the requirement of more strict and effective government rules against the child employment with the aim of preventing the kids from working at their early age.
3. The issue of child trafficking must be abolished by the different nation’s governments.

vii. The child laborers must be substituted by the adult labors so that the adult can get the job and kids get free from the child labor.

viii. The opportunities for employment for the adults must be increased for adults to decrease the issue of poverty as well as child labor.

1. Trade proprietors of manufacturing work, businesses, mines, etc., must have the pledge of not employing any kid in any labor.

Child labor is one of the broad social issues that require getting resolved on an urgent basis. This step is incomplete without the support of parents as well as the government. Kids carry a flourishing prospect of any developing nation. Thus, they should be a considerable concern of all the citizens. Children should get appropriate chance to grow and develop inside the contented surroundings of school and family. People should not use them for their earnings or for-profit motive. Children have full right to live their personal life with proper education.

Published in The Daily National Courier, March, 22 2023

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