RAWALPINDI, June 12: On the international day against child labour, the authorities concerned on Tuesday vowed to purge the garrison city of child labour as the menace was getting alarming in the district.

The Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CP&WB) Rawalpindi that looks after the destitute children acknowledged that main workforce in various commercial outlets consisted of underage employees stressing that the menace would become alarming if not controlled right now.

Child Protection Officer CP&WB Waseem Abbasi disclosed that thousands of underage children in Rawalpindi were involved in child labour adding that underage employees were being preferred by the owners of shops, factories and other business centres as they were ready to work on meager salaries.

Speaking to the participants during a workshop held in connection with the World Day against Labour Day, Mr. Waseem said that the child labour was the outcome of socio-economic factors that emerged from poverty, population growth and uneven distribution of wealth.

On the occasion, the experts on child issues said that the parents had to be equally blamed for allowing their children to work and earn money adding that awareness should be created in order to convince the parents to send their children to schools instead of forcing them to work.

Three schools funded by philanthropists have been established in Rawalpindi for providing free of cost education so that the poor children may be inclined to get free schooling instead of getting involved in child labour.

CP&WB officials said that it would conduct raids on shops, factories and other work places to check child labour and bring their employers to book