SIALKOT, Oct 1: The recent survey of the International Labour Organisation has cast a glance on the miseries of the working children in Sialkot’s surgical industry.

There are 5,800 children working in Sialkot’s surgical sector — 89 per cent as full time and the remaining 11 per cent are those also attending the school, according to the report.

The children’s average work time is nine hours a day and their monthly income ranges between Rs780 and Rs1,733 (according to age and experience).

The ILO conducts survey on the child labour after every two to three months and it has pledged to be a key partner in elimination of the menace from the Sialkot industrial sector.

ILO project manager (Sialkot) Mian Muhammad Binyamin told journalists that a majority (56.7 per cent) of the working children preferred to go to school. Some want full-time schooling, others part-time and some others vocational training.

The alarming aspect of the situation was the physical health of the working children a majority of whom had disturbed sleep. Physical punishment by parents/elders and injuries during work besides poor height, weight and pulmonary functions were part of such children’s lives.

The survey also revealed that personal hygiene of the child workers in surgical instrument workshops was very poor.

The ILO experts recommend that the working hours of the children should be reduced besides allowing them opportunity to play and study. The surgical sector’s hazardous processes and furnace work should be banned for the children below 18 years, the official quoted another recommendation.

Mr Binyamin vowed to continue the ILO’s special programme for combating hazardous and exploitative child labour in surgical instruments manufacturing in the district through prevention, withdrawal and rehabilitation of the children.

The project, he explained, adopted a comprehensive approach which progressed through preventing further inflow of children into surgical manufacturing, withdrawal of those already involved and helping in their rehabilitation by providing them access to education.