KARACHI: Need for eliminating child labour stressed
KARACHI, June 11: Like elsewhere across the globe, Pakistan will observe the World Day Against Child Labour on June 12 reaffirming its commitment to combat the menace and help develop an atmosphere congenial for all children.
This year’s theme for the World Day Against Child Labour-2007 is “Make your homes child labour free” with extreme relevance to developing countries like ours where services of children are often hired as domestic help.
Several NGOs along with relevant departments, including the social welfare department, both at federal and provincial levels are attempting to come up with a comprehensive approach to protect children against possible exploitation and pressures denying them of their rights of education, health and quality life.
On the eve of the World Day Against Child Labour, a seminar with the theme “Make your homes child labour free” was organised by the Karachi chapter of Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child on Monday. The event was aimed at sensitizing government employees, civil society actors and teachers and parents about the fundamental rights of children and motivating them to help curb the menace of domestic child labour.
Addressing the seminar, Sindh Social Department Coordinator Qurban Ali Memon said the country’s constitution guaranteed equal rights for education and health to all children irrespective of their caste, creed and origin. He said the child labour was destroying the future of nation as it kept a large number of the coming generations illiterate and ignorant of their rights.
Discussing the national and international legislation regarding child rights, he said the constitution guaranteed protection of children’s mental and physical health.
Referring to a survey carried out a decade back, Talha Ali of Muslim Aid Programme mentioned that around 3.3 million children were engaged in labour across the country. He said the actual toll of child labour must be more than the figures as shown in the study.
He also quoted some statistics from the Human Rights Commission report issued in 2005 and the Unicef report released in 2003 and said eight million children under 15 years of age were serving as child labour in the country.
Salam Dharejo of the SPARC referred to the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, mentioning that the convention urged the governments to protect children from work that threatens their health, education or development. He pointed out that Pakistan had ratified the ILO Convention which bound it to take actions for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour. However, he said, despite all legislation child labour was growing in many parts of the country.
Nazra Jahan spoke on the activities of 15 child rights clubs working in Karachi and the strategies they had adopted to curb the menace. She said under Article 32 of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, children were protected from employment that could be hazardous to their health or affect their education and development. She said there was little implementation on any of the conventions regarding child rights signed by the country.
Alina, a student of secondary school, shared her experience as how education and school environment supported in nourishment of the children. She said the children who could not attend the school were deprived of their basic right of education.
The participants of the seminar decided that on the World Day Against Child Labour, a delegation of school children would present a memorandum to the provincial labour and education ministers. This would be an attempt to procure substantial assurance from the two ministries to ensure child rights protection by obligating all government employees of the respective ministries to make their homes child labour free.
It was decided that other ministers and government official would also be sent the copies of memorandum.
The seminar was also addressed by Deputy District Attorney Abdul Maruf and Assistant Director Aamir Waheed of Sindh Commission for Children Welfare and Development.—APP
