KARACHI, June 11: The Society for the Protection of Rights of the Child, a non-governmental organization, has demanded increase in the budget allocation for education so that every child could go to school and the menace of child labour could be curtailed.
In a statement issued here on the eve of the International Child Labour Day, which is observed globally on June 12, the SPARC urged the government to carry out a detailed survey of child labour so that actual number of working children could be known and a proper policy for the rehabilitation could be formulated.
SPARC office-bearers Qindeel Shujaat and Sabeen Hafeez said it was important that children workers were removed from the worst form of labour such as mining, tanneries and fisheries.
They said that the latest report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan states that number of working children was around 10 million but the government continues to cite the figure at 3.6 million, which had declared after carrying out a survey in 1996. Since then the population as well as the level of poverty has increased and the number of children not going to school, who were potential child labour, is said to be over 25 million.
According to the ILO figures, they said that the number of child labour had decreased globally by 12 per cent from 246 million to 218 million and number of children involved in hazardous work had decreased by 26 per cent from 171 million to 126 million. It said that major drop in numbers had been in the Latin America and Caribbean, while success in Asia remained marginal.
The NGO activists said that approximately three million children in the country joined the work force every year and majority of them worked in factories, roadside hotels, restaurants, workshops and as domestic servants. These children were not only deprived of education, nutrition, recreation but were also exposed and vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
