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CHILD LABOUR IN PAKISTAN

ABSTRACT:

This project is on child labor in Pakistan. The term child labor refers to work that harms
children’s well-being and hinders their education, Development and future livelihoods
and that are in conflict with national /international legislation. Pakistan still lacks an
adequate national system of child labor statistics which could provide reliable
quantitative information on the number of working children.
The children are geographical and sect oral/occupational distribution, age, sex and other
relevant characteristics are also not available. I also take the existing program for
elimination of child labor in Pakistan and gives recommendation on the program. In this
project I try to identify the problems and gives solutions of the problems. The
methodology in this project is research based and I also doing social and economic
diagnosis of child labor

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INTRODUCTION

God has given human beings the boon of wisdom and discretion to think upon the signs
of the universe and to draw conclusions. That is the reason why they disclose the hidden
facts of it and its structure and have made remarkable progress in many walks of life.
Children are the flowers of heaven. They are the most beautiful and purest creation of
God. They are innocent both inwardly and outwardly. No doubt, they are the beauty of
this world. Early in the morning when the children put on different kinds of clothes and
begin to go to schools for the sake of knowledge, we feel a specific kind of joy through
their income.

But there are also other children, those who cannot go to schools due to financial
problems, they only watch others go to schools and can merely wish to seek knowledge.
It is due to many hindrances and difficulties; desperate conditions that they face in life.
Having been forced to kill their aspirations, dreams and other wishes, they are pressed to
earn a living for themselves and for their families. It is also a fact that there are many
children who play a key role in sustaining the economically life of their family without
which, their families would not be able to make ends meet. These are also part of our
society who has forgotten the pleasures of their childhood. When a child in addition to
getting education, earns his livelihood, this act of earning a livelihood is called as child
Labor. The concept of child Labor got much attention during the 1990s when European
countries announced a ban on the goods of the less-developed countries because of child
Labor.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines child Labor as:

when a child is working during early age he overworks or gives over time to Labor he
works due to the psychologically, socially, and materialistic pressure he becomes ready
to Labor on a very low pay

Another definition states:

“Child Labor” is generally speaking work for children that harms them or exploits them
in some way (physically, mentally, morally or blocking access to education),
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund(UNICEF) defines “child” as
anyone below the age of 18, and “child Labor” as some type of work performed by
children below age 18. (UNICEF)

The last national child labor survey was carried out in 1996, two years before the national
census conducted in 1998, and since then the country’s population has risen by over
30million people.

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The survey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics had found 3.3 million children
in the five to 14 years age group to be economically active on a full-time basis.
For the year 2000, the ILO projects that there will be 2,993,000 economically active
children, 1,158,000 girls and 1,835,000 boys between the ages of 10-14, representing
15.39% of this age group.

The latest UNESCO statistics show that 75 million children of primary school age were
out of school in 2006, compared to a staggering 103 million in 1999. Incidence of
children’s work also declined during that period. While still about one sixth of the total
child population ages five to 14 - 191 million children - were involved in some kind of
economic activity in 2004, there were some 20 million fewer working children in this age
group than there had been four years earlier.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Child Activities in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa:

A Comparative Analysis

Published in P. Lawrence and C. Thirtle, eds., Africa and Asia in Comparative

Development, (London: Macmillan), September, 2001.

Sonia Bhalotra
Universities of Bristol & Cambridge
And
Christopher Heady
University of Bath
This paper profiles child activities in the rural areas of Ghana and Pakistan using large nationally
representative household survey data that use comparable definitions in the two countries. The
data refer to 7-14 year olds in Ghana and 10-14 year olds in Pakistan. School enrollment rates for
Ghanaian boys and girls and Pakistani boys are between 70-80%. However, a Pakistani girl is less
than half as likely as the other children in the sample to be at school. Children in Ghana do not
work for wages but, in Pakistan, 6% of boys and 12% of girls are in fairly full-time wage labor, to
the clear neglect of schooling. Just more than a third of children in both countries are engaged in
work on the household farm or enterprise. There is great variation in their hours of work but they
average to approximately half-time levels. In both countries, there is evidence that own-farm
work lowers school attainment though self-employment and school are more easily combined by
children in Ghana than in Pakistan.
This paper has shown that there are substantial differences between the Ghana
andPakistanrelation to child labour. It has shown that, although work on the family farm is
themost common form of child labour in both countries, only Pakistan has significant child

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workoutside the household. Also, the difference in both labour force participation and schoolingis
fairly similar for Ghanaian girls and boys, but very different for Pakistani boys and girls
Grootaert, Christian
Kanbur, Ravi

On September 30, 1990, the first World Summit for Children promised to reduce child
mortality and malnutrition. It set targets to be reached by the year 2000. Although it
established no explicit goals on child labor, the targets included basic education for all
children and the completion of primary education by at least 80 percent of children.
Meeting these goals will reduce child labor, say the authors. The evidence they review
shows that education intervention plays a key role in reducing child labor and should play
a key role in its eventual abolition. But other interventions are also needed, including
legislative action, appropriate labor market policies, fertility interventions, and the
adoption of technology, and better job opportunities for parents. There must also be
advocates for better conditions for working children and for the empowerment of children
and their families. An encouraging consensus is emerging - both in the literature and in
the policies of international agencies concerned with child labor - that action, to be
effective, must aim first to protect children and improve their living and working
conditions. This implies a less stigmatized view of child labor, and the recognition that
child labor itself can be used as a targeting device to help children through health,
nutrition, schooling, and other interventions. In the long term, the objective of eliminating
child labor must be approached through legislative action combined with social and
economic incentives that take into account not only the types of child labor and child
labor arrangements in a country but that country's institutional and administrative
capacity
.
Indus Journal of Management & Social Sciences, 3(1):1-8 (Spring 2009)
http://indus.edu.pk/journal.php The Child Labor in Developing Countries: A
Challenge to Millennium Development Goals
Ravinder Rena*

The problem of child labor is immense and has been growing. Wherever poverty exists,
child labor there prevails and it is one of the most striking issues in the developing
countries. Hence, there is a need to identify the vulnerable children and point out the
problems in relation to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), particularly poverty
eradication, education for all, gender equality, combating HIV/AIDS and creation of a
global partnership for development. To understand household labor supply decisions,
considering relations to the labor market and to public interventions is critical in
designing programmers in order to achieve the MDg
the solution to the challenges of achieving education for all children, reducing poverty
and eliminating child labor lies in making legislation, interventions and education efforts
to work together to mobilize household resources and national resources.
Earlier research on child labor concluded that it is a special economic and social issue
that needs global attention for the development of the child to reduce the intensity of

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child labor. These efforts can open the door to achieve the second MDG: reduction of
poverty. Intervention at all levels of the society is necessary for the alleviation of child
problems

Child labor: a curse for the nation. (Pakistan)

By Haque, Muhammad Zahirul

Publication: Economic Review

Date: Tuesday, April 1 1997

About 40 per cent of the nation lives below the poverty line that has mostly compelled
the parents or guardians to send their innocent children to toil for earning their livelihood
and to ease the economic difficulties of their families. Even the h

METHODOLOGY:

Our research is based on articles, journals, and data from ILO, UNICEF, national
statistics and research articles related to Pakistan .so that’s why our research is qualitative
base. Why I use this type of research because there is no exactly data is available in
Pakistan and no ministry of child labor is present in Pakistan. So I cannot use
questionnaire or interview based research.

SOCIAL DIAGONISIS

Pakistan still lacks an adequate national system of child labor statistics which could
provide reliable quantitative information on the number of working children.
The children’s geographical and sectoral/occupational distribution, age, sex and other
relevant characteristics are also not available.
Pakistani children work in the agricultural sector, a large number of children work in
urban centers weaving carpets, manufacturing surgical instruments, and producing
sporting goods for export. There are allegations of children working in other industries
including leather, footwear, 1 and mining. Child labor is a reality in Pakistan. Many
organizations have estimated that there could be anywhere from 8 to 19 million child
laborers in the country. The age of a child is defined from age five to age fourteen, of
which there are 40 million in Pakistan, according to a survey last year by the Federal
Bureau of Statistics, funded by International Labor Organization’s IPEC (International
Programmed on the Elimination of Child Labor). This means that nearly half of all
children are working. This is unacceptable given that a principle of policy in Pakistan is
to provide free education and rid the country of illiteracy.

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 Total girls boys %age Child Childr Domes Child Child
child slaver en in tic trafficki Prostitutio
labor y Crime Child ng n and
Servan Pornograp
ts hy
200 2,993,0 1,158,0 1,835,0 15.39
2 00 00 00 %
200 19,000
1

199 2,065,0 7.5 4,000

9 00 millio
n
199 3,215,3 , 2,374,8 8.06 1.2 3,200 20,000 and
8 44 840,51 30 % millio 40,000
4 n
childr
en
199 18%
7
199 3.3 27% 73% 8.3% 240,000
6 million
199 1,805,0 1,030,0 1,805,0 17.67 50,00
5 00 00 00 % 0
199
4
199 6.7%
0
199 2,463
3
199 20,000
2

In many cases, the parents of child laborers cannot afford an education for their children
or they believe that education does not lead to marketable skills. However, statistics show
that most child laborers go on to have children that do not attend school and the cycle of
poverty continues. In Pakistan Children are sometimes kidnapped to be used as forced
labour Bonded labor, a contemporary form of slavery according to the UN definition, is
still unfortunately prevalent in certain sectors in Pakistan, such as brick manufacture,

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construction, sports goods manufacture and carpet-weaving Children are very often
forced into a situation of bonded labor by poverty Several thousand kidnapped children
are in forced labor at construction sites. Millions of children suffer under the bonded
labor system in brick kilns, carpet industries, agriculture, fisheries, stone/brick crushing,
shoe-making, power looms, refuse sorting more than 19,000 boys from the region,
ranging in age from two to 11 years old, have been trafficked as camel jockeys to the
Middle East- a trade that can cost them their lives. On an average, annually 4,500 girls
and children from Bangladesh are being trafficked to Pakistan Different human rights
activists and agencies estimate 200-400 young women and children are smuggled out
every month, most of them from Bangladesh to Pakistan About 40,000 children from
Bangladesh are involved in prostitution in Pakistan19,000 Pakistani children have been
trafficked to the United Arab 250,000 children working in brick kilns are bonded
laborers, driven into a miserable state by the fact that their entire families have been
'pawned' to the owners by virtue of their having pledged their labor in return for some
money taken200,000 Bangladeshi women have been trafficked children are employed in
hazardous industries such as match and fireworks factories, carpet-making factories,
agricultural industries under the authority of land-owners, and in conditions of near
slavery Pakistan for the slave trade and prostitution Pakistan is a source, transit, and
destination country for an increasing number of trafficked persons. Women and children
are trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation, bonded labor, and domestic servitude to
the Middle East. There is extensive trafficking of children from Bangladesh, primarily to
India, Pakistan, and destinations within the country are also largely for the purposes of
forced prostitution. About 40% young girls of the half a million Afghan children in
Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province have no where to go except to local brothels and
be called 'Gila Jam' Awareness of the problem of sexual abuse is very reluctantly
acknowledged, particularly by the government. Underground sexual exploitation of
children, especially boys, is reported to be widespread within the country. Most cogent
reasons given by parents or guardians for letting their child work were: to supplement
household income; to pay outstanding debt; assist or help in household enterprise; and no
one else available for household chores. Children are bonded all over the world and one
of the major problems confronting the issue is its invisibility. Too often efforts have been
limited by lack of information about the existence and extent of the bonded child labor,
Statistics on various socioeconomic characteristics, especially those attributes that are
related to the development of the child into a responsible adult member of the society,
such as education status and achievements, the time allocated to various non-school
activities, the income or expenditure level of the household to which the working child
belongs, and important aspects of participation by children in economic activities and its
impact, should also be generated to permit the analysis of the economic and social
situation of particular groups of working children.

Statically data of working children in rural and urban areas according to their ages

children age Extra Working Normal Working hours

working hour per week
hour
rural 5-14 years 56 46 35 hours per

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 week
urban 5-14 years 73 27
A considerable proportion of the working children in the 5-14 years age group (46 per
cent) are working more than the normal working hours, i.e. 35 hours per week, with 13
per cent working 56 hours or more per week. In urban areas, 73 per cent of the working
children work more than the normal working hours, which is significantly higher than in
rural areas (42 per cent). This shows that working conditions are generally worse in urban
areas

A survey found most of the children working in the informal sector in a variety of
activities; 52.2% of them in the production sector such as glass making, battery-cell
making, printing and publishing, textiles, metal works, jewelry making, plastics, leather
works, carpet weaving, garments, paper and packaging, furniture, engineering and auto
workshops, while 32.82% were found in the service sector such as petrol pump operators,
plumbers, washer men, sweepers, garbage collectors, barbers, shoe polishers, hawkers,
car cleaners, hotel and restaurant workers, domestic helpers, shop assistants and tailor.
Gathering of essential data would help design intervention policies specifically aimed at
combating child labor, and at monitoring and evaluating progress in the implementation
of action programmers. These forms of child labor constitute fundamental violations of
human rights, and obtaining information to facilitate their elimination is therefore an
immediate priority

 Street children, child beggars, child porters, child rag- pickers, child scavengers
and child domestic workers are the worst forms of child labor and require
government’s plan of action to curb them.

 In bazaars, streets and traffic signals children are forced to beg either by parents
or by the mafia after being trafficked

Major strategies include enhancement of educational opportunities for working children

through the launching of crash literacy programmers for school dropouts and introducing
apprenticeship, vocational and skills development programmers; establishment of special
resource centers in the Labor Departments to act as focal points and to monitor and
coordinate the activities, and assist enforcement agencies in withdrawing and
rehabilitating children working in hazardous and exploitative situations. Children come
from the poorest of the poor, leaving them no other option but to migrate to the larger
cities and towns in the area to seek employment - many without their families

Some of the major factors responsible to child labor are:

 Large population with high population growth rate;

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  Almost three-fourths (70 per cent) of the total population living in rural areas,
with subsistence agricultural activities;
 Low productivity and prevalence of poverty;
 Unpaid family helpers, especially in agricultural activities;
 Discriminating social attitude towards girls and women;
 Inadequate educational facilities.

It is an outcome of a multitude of socio-economic factors and has its roots in poverty,

lack of opportunities, high rate of population growth, unemployment, uneven distribution
of wealth and resources, outdated social customs and norms and plethora of other factors.
According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) the daily income of
65.5% people of Pakistan is below 2 U.S. dollars a day. According to the Asian
Development Bank (ADB) Report, 47 million people in Pakistan are leading lines below
the line of poverty, whereas the Social Policy Development Centre (SDPC) Karachi has
stated in one of its reports that the ratio of poverty in Pakistan was 33% during 1999 that
increased in 2001 and reached 38%. The ratio of poverty in the current year is around
30%.all these are the reasons for the increase of child labor in Pakistan and poverty plays
an important role in addition of child labor.

the point that if 30% of our country’s total population is leading life below the poverty-
line wherein the people are deprived of basic necessities of life like clothing, shelter,
food, education and medication, the children of these people will be forced to become
Laborers or workers in order to survive. Another reason of child Labor in Pakistan is that
our people don’t have the security of social life. There is no aid plan or allowance for
children in our country. Class-based education system is another reason for increasing
child Labor; villages lack standardized education systems and as a result, child Labor is
on increase in rural areas. The government has not put its laws into practice to stop child
Labor in our country. Employers after exploiting child Labor, extract a large surplus,
whereas child Labor, despite increasing poverty, unemployment and other problems, are
pressed to do anything and everything for their livelihood and the survival of their
families.

ECONOMIC DIAGONOSIS

Elimination of child labour through education Minister and fund for the
education
June 12, 2010

It was the first time the Labor Ministry allocated over Rs 1 billion for education and
rehabilitation of registered laborer children.

The Government of Pakistan has established a fund for the education of working children
and rehabilitation of freed bonded labor with an initial endowment of Rs 100 million
(approximately equivalent to US$ 2 million

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PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT

The provincial Punjab Government has established Child Protection Bureaus in five
districts to protect and rehabilitate street children, in particular beggars, and has budgeted
USD 1.8 million for these programs.

GOVERNMENT WITH OTHER INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES

In May 2008, the Government of Denmark funded a USD 1 million Phase II project that
ends in December 2009. With the support of the Government of Norway, the
Government of Pakistan is participating in a USD 1.2 million ILOIPEC project to engage
the media in combating the worst forms of child labor, ending in July 2009.

The International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) is supporting the

Government through a USD 700,000 ILO-IPEC project targeting children in the soccer
ball industry in Sialkot, ending in August 2009. The Government of Germany is funding
a USD 600,000 ILO-IPEC project to support country programs in Pakistan until
December 2009. The Government of Pakistan will continue to participate in the Pakistan
Carpet Manufacturers' and Exporters' Association-supported USD 900,000 ILO-IPEC
project to combat child labor in the carpet industry until September 2009. The
Government of Switzerland is supporting a USD 3.6 million ILO-IPEC project to combat
child labor in the country through education and training until December 2009.

The Government is participating in a 5-year USD 1.3 million program (2008-2013),

funded by the EU and implemented by ILO-IPEC, to combat abusive child labor. The
Government is participating in a USD 1.4 million regional ILO-IPEC project, funded by
the Government of Italy, to prevent and eliminate child labor in South Asia until March
2009.

Funded by ILO

The Sialkot district alone produces nearly 75 per cent of the world's hand-stitched soccer
balls for export. The balls generate US$ 1 billion in retail sales annually. A recent ILO
study estimated that as many as 7,000 children currently work in the industry.

The Agreement follows an initiative launched by The World Federation of Sporting

Goods Industry and the Soccer Industry Council of America, which represent more than
50 sporting goods brands, to eliminate child labor from the production of soccer balls in
Pakistan.

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Spending on the Sialkot project is expected to reach approximately US$ 1 million during
the next 24 months, including contributions of at least US$ 500,000 from the ILO
(consisting of funds received from the US Government), roughly US$ 360,000 from local
manufacturers (to fund the costs of the independent monitor), US$ 100,000 from the
Soccer Industry Council of America (to support elements of the Social Protection
Programmed) and US$ 200,000 from UNICEF

Funds provided by the European Union (to the ILO) nonprogrammer of elimination of
child labor in Pakistan, the ILO (being executing agency) has utilized an amount of US$
285,216.06/- during the last six months in year Feb., 2010

USDOL funded for elimination of child labor

Country category Project focus amount Fiscal year

funded
Pakistan Sector Soccer $1.87million 1997-2000
programmers(phase1- industry
2)
Sector programmed Carpet sector $5.56 1999-2002
Save the children Primary and 5.0million
vocational
training in
Punjab
province

USDOL funded a 5-year USD 4 million ILO-IPEC Time bound Program that ended in
September 2008 and withdrew 10,217 children and prevented 1,834 children from work
in the glass bangle, surgical instrument, tanning, coal mining, scavenging, and deep-sea
fishing industries. The Government is participating in an ILO-IPEC implemented 4-year
USD 1.5 million USDOL-funded project to provide education and training programs for
children in Balakot, North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) left vulnerable to hazardous
child labor by the earthquake of October 8, 2005. The project targets 500 children for
withdrawal and 2,000 children for prevention from hazardous work.

SOCIOECONOMIC DIAGONOSIS:

Statistics on various socioeconomic characteristics, especially those attributes that are

related to the development of the child into a responsible adult member of the society,
such as education status and achievements, the time allocated to various non-school
activities, the income or expenditure level of the household to which the working child
belongs, and important aspects of participation by children in economic activities and its

12
impact, should also be generated to permit the analysis of the economic and social
situation of particular groups of working children

The major PROBLEMS responsible for child labor were:

OVER POPULATION:

Our country is overpopulated. Due to limited resources and more mouths to feed, Children
are employed in various forms of work.

ILLITERACY:

Illiterate parents do not realize the need for a proper physical, emotional and cognitive
development of a child. As they are uneducated, they do not realize the importance of
education for their children.

POVERTY:

Many a time poverty forces parents to send their children to hazardous jobs. Although they
know it is wrong, they have no other alternative as they need the money.

URBANIZATION:

The Industrial Revolution has its own negative side. Many a time MNC's and export
industries in the developing world employ while workers, particularly in the garment
industry.

UNEMPLOYMENT OF ELDERS:

Elders often find it difficult to get jobs. The industrialists and factory owners find it profitable
to employ children. This is so because they can pay less and extract more work. They will
also not create union problem.

ORPHANS:
Children born out of wedlock, children with no parents and relatives, often do not find
anyone to support them. Thus they are forced to work for their own living.

WILLINGNESS TO EXPLOIT CHILDREN:

This is at the root of the problem Even if a family is very poor; the incidence of child labor
will be very low unless there are people willing to exploit these children.

FAMILY BACKGROUND:

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Families break down for many reasons, leaving the household short of income. Sometimes
divorce leaves one parent looking after more children than she or he can afford to feed.
Divorce is sometimes brought about by domestic violence, which also directly drives
children to leave home when they are still young. The death of either parent precipitates
economic disaster for many households. Families also lose their livelihood as a result of
natural disasters and human crises that leave people destitute and force children to start
earning.

Other factors may stimulate this cycle; for example, schools in our poor country are often
inaccessible, prohibitively expensive, lack teaching and classroom resources. Cultural
pressures can undermine perception of the long term value of education, especially for
girl children...

Working children come from large families in the low-income bracket. The average
household size of working children was found to be eight members, which is higher than
the national average. A higher proportion of economically active girls fall under
households with nine plus members. The survey indicates that the most cogent reasons
given by parents/guardians for letting their child work are to assist in house enterprise (69
per cent), and to supplement the household income (28 per cent). The former is
pronounced in rural households, whereas the latter is more significant in urban families.

One-third of the working children are literate, which shows that mere completion of
primary education is not an effective deterrent to child labor. School enrolment indicates
that economically active children who are not enrolled in school (34.2 per cent) are
higher than economically active children combined with school (13.2 per cent). This
shows that enrolment is negatively correlated with the involvement of children in
economic activity. Education attainment is low because of limited opportunities resulting
from inaccessibility of schools; inability of parents to afford schooling costs; irrelevance
of school curriculum to real needs, and restrictions on girls' mobility in certain parts of
the country.

SOLUTIONS:

Child Labor is a complex problem which demands a range of solutions. There is no better
way to prevent child Labor than to make education compulsory.
Attitudes will have to change if child labor is to be eradicated. One of the main reasons
why child labor continues to exist is that girls are seen as worth less than boys. In most
families where children work, there is an average of 8 children and if girls are employed,
the families have at least 9 children. If women were involved in the formal sector, it is
more likely that they would have fewer children and also delay the age at which they
have children. Thus, the government should find a way to empower women and children.
In addition to this, the Pakistani as well as Western governments must invest more money
into the education system. It is clear that many parents do not want to send their children

14
to school either because they must pay or they view the school system as inadequate. If
parents want their children to succeed in the future, they must have faith that school will
help them and primary school must be free. According to a survey, 24 percent of children
believed that school did not teach them any useful skills. The government could open
schools that teach lifelong skills to children who must work
Although the government passed a law that forgave all debts, this law has not been
enforced. As mentioned above, children that work are usually illiterate and are not
familiar with laws passed by the government. Many of their parents would be unaware of
this law as well. The government should employ counselors that work with illiterate
people and make them aware of such developments. In addition, with regard to
enforcement, the government should pass a law declaring domestic employment
hazardous. Most children work at home and parents are often not mindful about
Regulations regarding child labor- they must be enforced.

Policy approaches to tackle child labor

Improve incentives
Make school attendance more accessible—more schools, flexible
Schooling
Reduce or eliminate school fees
Eliminate discrimination against girls in school
Improve educational quality—teaching, materials
Improve basic services—for example, access to clean water

Remove constraints
Reduce poverty
Social safety nets
Cash or food linked to participation in education
Improve access to credit
Labor market functioning

EXITING PROGRAMMES

The Government of Pakistan, on 31 December 2003, released its Poverty Reduction Strategy
Paper (PRSP), titled 'accelerating economic growth and reducing poverty: The road ahead'.
The PRSP gives due consideration to the issue of child labor in the planning of its targets. It
clearly outlines its commitment on child labor issues and states, "Although the government is
committed to eliminate child labor as reflected in the National Policy and Plan of Action to

15
Combat Child Labor, it is pursuing a policy of gradual elimination of all forms of child labor
and immediate elimination of the hazardous and exploitative forms of child labor under
IPEC. To achieve this objective, certain specified target programs have been initiated ( 3)."

The Ministry of Education launched the National Plan of Action for Education for All (EFA)
on 3 April 2003 for achieving universal primary education by 2015. Gender disparities are
being narrowed through mixed primary schools, compensatory programmers, and
appointment of female teachers ( 4). According to the EFA goals and targets, by 2015, all
children, with special emphasis on girls and children in difficult circumstances, should have
access to completely free education. Secondly, it aims at eliminating gender disparities in
primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by
2015. In this regard, the Education Sector Reforms, 2001/05, also aims to address the needs
of child laborers.

The National Commission for Child Welfare and Development (NCCWD) has initiated a
national pilot project for the rehabilitation of children involved in labor. The project, called
the National Project on Rehabilitation of Child Labor, is aimed at the withdrawal of children
from hazardous employment, the rehabilitation of children through formal education, and the
development of linkages between community health services and recreational packages.
Under the project, Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal has now set up more than 80 centers to rehabilitate
children working in hazardous occupations by imparting non-formal education (NFE).
Children are given a daily stipend of PRs 10 as an incentive, in addition to uniforms, shoes,
other clothing and means during school hours. Parents are paid PRs 4,100 per year.

Moreover, the post-Beijing National Plan of Action for Women, 1998, and the National
Policy for the Empowerment and Development of Women, 2002, both have a chapter on the
girl child and refer in particular to the needs of child laborers.

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RECOMMENDATIONS:

Although child labor is a serious problem in Pakistan and it is very difficult to tackle it but
here are some recommendations to eliminate or reduce child labor in Pakistan and for this
program.

As we know Pakistan labor is a developing country and most of its labor depends on
children. For this reason we cannot

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CONCLUSION:

In conclusion, the continuation of child labor is a tragic situation. There have been many
positive laws passed that regulate child labor and Pakistan is a party to many conventions
that prohibit child abuse in labor, but these practices are still a reality. In many industries,
children suffer injuries that should not happen in childhood and they lose a very
important thing: the opportunity to play and be with other children their own age. Most of
them do not go to school and miss the chance to learn skills that will last their whole
lives. If the government can do only one thing, it should work to end this practice that
dooms many families to a lifetime of debt and poverty.

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