LAHORE, May 30: Manzoor, 11, smokes a cheaper brand of cigarette knowing not how and why he picked up the habit. He only knows that 20 per cent of his daily income goes up in smoke.

He is among 900 beggar children aged between six and 15, rescued by the Punjab Child Protection and Welfare Bureau from various intersections of Lahore during one-and-a-half year, who are smokers. Though the bureau had imparted them health education in this regard before handing them back to their parents or guardians, it expresses a little hope regarding their quitting the habit.

Manzoor usually collects between Rs80 and Rs100. “I left my home in Faisalabad about two years ago to avoid my father’s punishment for not accompanying him to sell fruits.”

“Here in Lahore I spent night on the footpath of Data Darbar and sometimes Chauburji. I made friends with three beggar children with whom I used to visit cinema and circus.” He was not happy at reunion with his family.

CPWB assistant-director Zubair Ahmad Shad told Dawn that more than 45 per cent beggar children it had rescued since its establishment in November 2004 were smokers. “It indicates that such children and child labourers are more prone to smoking,” he says.

Pakistan, like the rest of the world, is observing the No Tobacco Day on May 31 (tomorrow). “The federal government must take serious steps to discourage smoking, especially by children,” says a professor of a local university.

There is also a need to amend laws in this regard, he adds.

An NGO’s report says that 25 per cent of students worldwide who smoke had lit their first cigarette before the age of 10.

The report says that tobacco use is considered a vital risk factor in heart attack, cancer and other fatal diseases. Smokers destroy their lives on the one hand and affect the non-smokers on the other.

According to an estimate, 4.9 million smokers die every year across the world. It is the second major cause of death in the world. “The death toll is rising rapidly, especially in low and middle-income countries.”

The report says that tobacco use in Pakistan is on the rise. About 10,000 people die because of tobacco-related diseases every year and some 1,200 people take up the habit every day.

“The western world through strict laws are getting rid of the menace while the powerful tobacco industry is finding new big markets in the third world.”

Currently, 1.3 billion people smoke worldwide, of them 1.2 billion live in developing countries. “If the current smoking pattern continues it will cause 10 million deaths each year by 2020 in the world,” the report points out.