| February 3, 2002 | Sunday | Ziqa’ad 19, 1422 |
Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
Tackling child labour
EXPERTS are predicting that the prolonged drought affecting the country will lead to an even worse water shortage than had been earlier predicted. This shortage, they believe, will have a highly negative impact on the wheat crop, which generally ripens during February and March. Water levels in the country’s two major reservoirs, Tarbela and Mangla, are believed to be declining steeply and are likely to cause a major water crisis by the end of this month. The earlier projection of a 51 per cent shortfall has now been revised to 54 per cent, but some experts fear that even this figure may represent an optimistic view. The real shortfall, if there are no rains in the immediate future, is likely to be in the region of 60 per cent and could even hit an alarming 80 per cent. In that event, the country’s agricultural output could decline precipitously in the months ahead. The Indus River System Authority (IRSA), which has the task of allocating the distribution of the water between the provinces, has now called an urgent meeting of the representatives of the four provinces on February 6 to chalk out an emergency plan to deal with the looming crisis.
Punjab and Sindh had agreed in October to cut down their normal consumption by 51 per cent in the face of the expected shortfall. With the 51 per cent shortfall now deemed to be optimistic, the two provinces will once again have to agree on more cuts in their share. Unfortunately, in the four-month period following the agreement, both the provinces have utilized a large part of their allotted share. Therefore, the cut in their share is now going to be extremely steep. Over the years, the water issue has become deeply politicized, with views and perceptions polarized along provincial lines. The IRSA itself has become highly politicized and finds it increasingly difficult to come up with a formula acceptable to all the provinces. The concept of rotating chairmanship, which was meant to keep the view of any single province from dominating the body, has now become a platform for partisan controversies and manoeuvring.
In a nutshell, at the centre of the current discord are two different water accords: one of 1991, which Sindh generally favours, and the subsequent ministerial agreement of 1994 (that deals specifically with the problem of shortages), which finds favour with Punjab. Following a prolonged bout of agitation in Sindh, the 1994 agreement was scrapped but not before fuelling bitter discord between Sindh and Punjab. The IRSA has wasted precious time and energy in wranglings over which of the two accords ought to be used as a basis for determining the provinces’ shares during a period of acute shortage. In the political sound and fury, conservation strategies and other innovative measures that could alleviate the crisis have been all but drowned out.
With the construction of large dams, also a subject of deep inter-provincial suspicion, long-term avenues to resolve the problem are virtually blocked until a consensus emerges. The other alternative is to build storage capacities that can store rain and flood water to be utilized during the lean season and droughts. The government has also been advocating the lining of water courses and canals as a means of saving considerable amounts of water lost through seepage. In the crisis situation that obtains today, it is important to devise methods to equitably distribute water in a cool-headed and rational manner. Unfortunately, water has become such an emotive issue that it can be exploited by vested interests to whip up distrust between the provinces. It is time to focus on the problem ahead and devise means to deal with it keeping the rights of all parties in mind. And if the contentious water problem still refuses to be sorted out amicably, the question of judicial arbitration or securing the services of a team of impartial international water experts to assist in working out a fair and equitable distribution formula must be considered as a way out of the continuing logjam.
THE US will provide $5 million for education initiatives under the child labour programme during the current fiscal year. An agreement to this effect was earlier signed between Pakistan and the US for implementation in three districts of Punjab in conjunction with relevant departments and NGOs. Imparting basic education by increasing primary school attendance and developing vocational training for youth are key objectives of the initiative. Government schools will be assisted in starting afternoon classes for working children and supplementary curriculum will be introduced at the school level to make education more relevant to the future of the youth.
Children denied access to education get drawn into the labour market and become open to exploitation, which minimizes their chances of benefiting from programmes of skill development or literacy promotion. Moreover, children exposed to the harsh environment of the workplace are left physically and mentally scarred. Most are employed in the unorganized sector where they are deprived of minimum wages, regular working hours and indeed any measure of job security. According to an official estimate, there are two to three million child workers in Pakistan, but independent figures — up to seven million child/bonded labourers — show that the problem may be more serious and widespread.
The Punjab government carried out a number of surveys in 1998 and 1999 to determine the extent and nature of child labour in brick kilns, auto workshops, tanneries, and textile, light engineering and surgical instrument manufacture, soccer ball stitching and hotels and restaurants. About 90 per cent of them were boys and 87 per cent illiterate. The working hour statistics showed that about 46 per cent of the children had to work more than 35 hours a week and 13 per cent worked even more than 56 hours a week. A survey of the federal government found that about 71 per cent of 3.3 million children were engaged in various forms of hard labour in elementary occupations relating to agriculture, sales and services, mining, construction, manufacturing and transport sectors. Crafts and related activities are the next major occupation. Alarmingly, the survey found that seven per cent of the working children suffered from frequent illness and injuries, 28 per cent occasionally and 33 per cent rarely. Clearly, the health problems of the working children are multiplying.
Unfortunately, acute poverty, illiteracy and unemployment have created conditions in which eliminating child labour is a daunting task. Most parents and guardians argue that they allow their children to work since they need to supplement their incomes. The problem cannot be tackled without sustained effort. However, lack of educational opportunities is a major hurdle in the way of programmes for combating child labour. In this context, the assistance being provided for the education of working children recognizes that child labour, primarily an offshoot of grinding poverty, cannot be addressed and resolved in a short time. Long-term assistance is required to measure up to the challenge. The educational initiative can greatly contribute to rehabilitation of the disadvantaged children, but it is important that aid for the deprived children reaches the targeted group. Studies show that an illiterate child worker becomes an illiterate and unskilled adult, condemned to a life of deprivation, lacking the means to provide education and nutrition to his children. To break the vicious cycle, Pakistan will have to ensure continuous improvement in the development of education programmes for combating child labour. These would have to be promoted through advocacy, information sharing and direct action efforts in the coming years.