LAHORE: The Child Rights Movement Punjab (CRM) held a consultation on Thursday wherein the issue of child domestic labour and its legislation were discussed.

Many issues came forward through two presentations and discussion among the stakeholders.

The very first premise was that two major laws enacted in 2016 by the Punjab Assembly did not mention the issue of Child Domestic Labour or even criminalise it, whereas internationally it is considered the worst form of slavery.

This is despite the fact that a very large number of children are suffering behind closed doors. In 2016, the Child Protection Bureau itself claimed to have rescued 45 children while five were rescued during 2017, but these numbers were just tip of the iceberg. There were a number of cases that went unreported, and because working in domestic situation meant that it was invisible to the public eye, no third party often intruded.

Occasionally the attitude was that the matter was also a domestic issue, and that others should stay away even if a child was being abused.

The CPB representative however also said that in no way should a child’s domestic labour be justified, in fact, it should be banned.

Child rights activist Iftikhar Mubarik said children working in domestic environment were suffering from all sorts of violence, abuse and exploitation from their employers. They were not allowed to develop and grow like normal children, were usually separated from their parents and had inadequate living space or privacy. They were often subject to sexual harassment too, especially girls. Some of them were even trafficked and enslaved. Worst was that these were the only child labourers who were killed, and in other occupations, despite being hazardous death rates were not even close. Sadly these children died of not environmental causes but by employers’ torturing them to death. They also did not have any social protection.

He urged the federal and provincial governments to work in coordination with each other to ensure the implementation of Pakistan’s provincial, national, regional and international obligations especially under the ILO Conventions, Concluding Observations issued by UN Committee on the Rights of Child in June 2016, Regional Action Plan for the Prevention and Elimination of all forms of Child Labour in South Asia (2016-2021). He stressed the strategic engagement of government departments and civil society organisation to work in collaboration to address the issue of child labour.

Labour expert Iftikhar Ahmed shared that the Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2014-15 revealed that 3.042 million children (10-17 years), representing 16pc of the total children in this age group, are in employment in Punjab. The number of children involved in child labour in the entire age range, i.e. 10-17 years is 2.083 million. Out of this, 1.19 million (57%) are in the 10-14 years range while the remaining are in 15-17 years age group and engaged in hazardous work. We have also looked at this data disaggregating it on the basis of gender and area. Out of the children aged 10-17 years in child labour, 68% (1.40 million) are male and 80% (1.68 million) come from rural areas.

The share of those engaged in hazardous work (15-17 years) is 43% (0.886 million) of total children engaged in child labour (2.083 million).

Mr Iftikhar stressed the need for early formation of the Provincial Committee on Child Labour under section 4 of The Punjab Restriction on Employment of Children Act 2016 and holding of its meetings after regular intervals with discussions on enactment of new legislation and its effective enforcement. He also urged that the Labour & Human Resource Department should notify rules of both child labour related laws for their better implementation.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s chairperson Dr Mehdi Hassan said the issues of vulnerable segments of society like children should be on top priority of the government. He called for early initiation of nationwide child labour survey to actually assess the magnitude of child labour and said the survey should also include children working in domestic labour or in other informal sectors.

Rao Khalil from the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) shared that his department rescued 60 children who were suffering severe torture by their employers.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2017