ISLAMABAD, July 5: As many as 1,949 children suffered casualties at 200 different workplaces during the year 2002 due to hazardous nature of job and unprotective environment, says Pakistan National Human Development Report, 2003.

The report on poverty, growth and governance, which has been released by the United Nations Development Programme, stated that child workers experienced repeated injuries but returned to work after first aid or medical treatment.

According to the report, in the construction business, 677 children were injured at 58 different workplaces while 752 suffered casualties at 48 different steel window-manufacturing units.

As many as 60 children were reportedly injured at 23 places with unsafe electrical fittings, 125 at 17 places of furnishing, 111 children at 11 different tiles producing plants, 64 at eight units of cement production and 160 children suffered casualties at 35 different places during whitewash.

In addition to this, a large number of child labourers were also sexually abused at workplaces.

The report suggested to the government to evolve an administrative mechanism for ending child labour in hazardous industries.

It said children from lower income families were facing a high risk of disease and death due to widespread malnutrition.

They are also obliged to work for a living, sometimes in hazardous occupations where they not only work for long hours and face a wide range of diseases and injuries, but are occasionally subjected to physical beating and sexual abuse, it added.

Out of every 1,000 children who survive infancy, 123 die before reaching the age of five. Of those who survive, a large proportion suffers from malnutrition which leads to impaired immunity and higher vulnerability to infections.

The report also cited figure from the national health survey which showed that between 30 to 40 per cent (6.2 to 8.3 million children) suffer from stunting (low height for their age).

The report said children working with their families in agricultural operations like seedbed preparation, fodder cutting, rice planting, and harvesting were increasingly exposed to toxic substances in pesticides. The indiscriminate use of pesticides are responsible for growing health hazards, it added.

Though the developing countries account for only one sixth of the pesticide users, the rate of poisoning was thirteen times higher as in some of the developed countries, it added.

Another dimension of the hazards to which rural child workers are exposed to arises out of the production conditions in the agriculture sector. In many cases, the child labourers are made to work without wages and frequently subjected to humiliation, beating and abuse.

The UNDP report said in the urban and semi-urban areas, most of the child labourers were working at small-scale unregistered establishments in the informal sector where the employers could easily evade the legislative protections granted to the working children.