KARACHI, Dec 28: Speakers at a seminar on Sunday demanded that basic amenities like health, education etc be provided to children, so that the menace of child labour could be checked effectively.

The seminar on “Children’s Rights: International and national laws,” was organized by the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), at a local hotel.

The speakers said that over 1,000 working children had been admitted to the primary schools in Gadap, Orangi, Gulberg, Baldia, Site, Korangi and other towns in the past two years.

They said that the school management committees at various educational institutions had been made functional and parents and employers of working children had been convinced to ensure basic rights of the children.

The speakers appraised the audience regarding various forms of child labour, the number of working children, and also informed about numerous government as well as non-governmental organizations working to eradicate child labour.

A young girl, Bibi Sana, representing the workers, strongly criticized the society and various government organizations for not being able to provide basic amenities to the children.

She, however, hoped that the situation would improve and children would be given their due rights.

Former Sindh Education Minister Anita Ghulam Ali, Karamat Ali, Abdul Qadir, Rana Asif, Shakeela Asghar, Rehana Yasmin, Nawaz Arain, Mirza Maqsood, Shaikh Majeed, Sagheer Shah, and others also spoke on the occasion.