KARACHI: Speakers at a seminar on Friday said none of the provinces was eager to conduct a fresh child labour survey even though the last survey was conducted 20 years ago.

They said useful social protection policies that were sensitive to children’s needs were needed in Pakistan to eradicate child labour.

The seminar “A child employed is a future destroyed” was organised by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), Child Rights Movement (CRM), and Sindh labour ministry at a hotel.

Experts and officials said Pakistan faced the ‘worst’ form of child labour where workers were subjected to physical and mental torture.

They said there should be zero tolerance for forced child labour with a national policy against it.

The audience was told that a child labour rehabilitation fund needed to be revived and child labour rehabilitation centres at the district level be established.

They said the Employment of Children Act 1991 was abolished after the 18th amendment. The labour ministry in Sindh should adopt and move the provincial draft of Employment of Children Act Sindh for further process.

They said in Pakistan, 25 million children were not going to school out of which 15mn were earning for their families through various forms of manual labour.

A senior official in the labour ministry said the ministry was drafting a strategy to conduct a child labour survey.

He said the government was taking keen interest to activate the already existing vigilance committees on child labour at the district level.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2016