June 07, 2007

It was a hot May afternoon. I was struggling to park my car near a busy market area. There was a knock at the window. Knowing instinctively it was a beggar, or a beggar in hawker’s disguise, I turned with an annoyed expression and uttered, “Maaf karo baba”, a euphemism for ‘go away’.

It was a boy, about ten years old, selling mini-packs of tissue papers. Behind him was another boy, about five-years old. I corrected my facial expressions and drove on to park the car in a small parking space. As I got out of the car I saw the boys moving away; their eyes had started searching for someone else to sell their stuff to.

The little one was trailing behind the elder sibling and I noticed that he was wearing oversized slippers, hand-me-down ones, perhaps. I felt guilty for being rude to the little kids who were braving the heat just to earn a little money. They slowed down seeing me staring at them. I realised that the older boy was barefoot –– he had lent his slippers to his brother.

It was just too hot for anyone to be out in the sun, let alone barefoot. I felt so sorry for them that I wanted to cry, and they realised it from my expression. I called them, and they came rushing, feeling elated that some money was about to reach their hands. I gave the older boy some money and told him to buy slippers for himself. Deep down, I knew that there would perhaps be no new slippers for either of the two.

With probably more than half a dozen people at home, a mother who either begs or works as a maid and a father who perhaps smokes away all the family’s income, they will be putting this money to some other use. You would have to give such poor little kids a whole lot of money to take care of their many other needs before they could consider spending it on luxuries like slippers and clothes. If you are surviving on one meal or less a day, you are ready to sell even the clothes on you to fill your tummy.

Sights such as these are witnessed countless times everyday. These are children who should be playing and studying, sheltered in their homes, but they are either begging or working their childhood away. They are child labourers; too many to be counted. Their present is bleak and the future seems no better.

There are other less fortunate children whom we don’t get to see at work so often because they are toiling away in factories and in the fields. Their little hands carry burdens that may be twice their weight. Their work output in terms of hours is as much as that of an adult, but they are paid a pittance and sometimes not even that.

Child labour is a global issue but more so in the developing and underdeveloped countries. In analysing it, many reasons and affecting factors can be traced but the basic underlying cause is poverty. The fight for survival forces families to send their children out to earn instead of schools to study. While no child is happy working they will be more distressed going hungry. Poverty has doomed them to a life of misery at a tender age.

The suggestion that children should be stopped from working altogether is not a practical solution of dealing with the issue of child labour. In many cases, such children’s contribution to the family income is vital for their own sustenance. Sometimes older children have to stay back home to handle the household chores and younger siblings while the parents are at work. As one of the most powerless groups in society, children have to bear the physical and emotional cost of poverty, the effects of which they carry into adulthood.

This problem is one of alarming proportions. According to a government study, the number of child labourers in Pakistan was 3.3 million in 1996; the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan put that figure at 10 million in 2005. There are now more NGOs working on this issue and the government, too, has been giving assurances that the menace of child labour is being seriously looked into. Yet, you see more children today begging in the street than before.

Clearly, the root causes –– poverty and inflation –– are not being tackled. They need to be controlled and reduced. Better economic conditions will ease the pressure on children to earn or beg. Besides, legislation to improve the working conditions of children in different sectors and banning their employment in hazardous occupations needs to be enforced.

With another World Day Against Child Labour this June 12 approaching, it is time the government did more than just paying lip service. Meanwhile, each one of us, in our own little way, can do something to make life a little better for the less fortunate children who are out begging or working, mostly just to feed themselves.