Child Labour (Research report) Chapter

chapter-1

an introduction to child labour

            Children, the symbol of beauty and future of nation, need attention, affection, nutrition, security, medical care and proper education for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. But unfortunately, there are million of children in this unlucky country who have been deprived of these basic and necessary rights. On the one hand they have been victimized to deprivation while on the other hand a heavy burden of child labour has been put on their small, growing and pitiable shoulders.

            There is a great difference in the physical and mental setup of children and adults. But in our country children are handling like adults. They are assigned the duties and responsibilities of adults. This eradication of difference between children and adults is not only an injustice but an exploitation of children. This exploitation not only affects children’s, personality but also weakens them physically, mentally and psychologically. Young and innocent kids can be witnessed here working as factory workers. Loaders, vendor, workshops assistance, beggars, car cleaners, brick makers and domestic worker etc in day to day life. The working conditions of the children is extremely poor. Their working period is longer than that of approved one i.e. eight hours a day. At the end of the day the cruel employers give them nominal wages. Because of great burden, most of their children get suffer from diseases like tuberculosis, cancer, skin allergy and shortsightedness etc.

            After the industrial revolution, to decrease the growth of population, several measures were taken in west European countries to ensure better health of the children. As infant morality and child mortality were found to be associated with high fertility, prohibition of employment of children in certain categories of work was enforced.

            Britain was the first country to prohibit employment of children under, 15 years to work in mines. Gradually different industrialized countries enforced prohibition of employment of children in different types of job and introduced compulsory schooling upto a certain age.

literature preview of child labour

Definitions of child labour

            According to Article 1 of “the convention of the rights of the child (20 Nov. 1989).

            “A child means every human being below the age of 18 years unless under the national laws recognize the age of majority earlier”.

            According to the international criteria approved by UNICEF, the child will below 15 years of age.

            CHILD LABOUR: Child labour is defined as “any mental or physical work done by a child for earning wages”.

            Classification of child labour

Gary Rodgers and Gay Standing (1981), have classified child labour in low income countries into four categories.

1)      Domestic work

2)      Non domestic work and non-monetary work.

3)      Bonded labour.

4)      Wage labour.

           

1)                  Domestic Work Services: Domestic work include like chores of cleaning, cooking, washing clothes and child care etc, performed by children. It is common to some extent in all societies.

2)                  Non Domestic Work: In agrarian societies, in addition to the above mentioned tasks are non monetary and non domestic, they are significant in term of economic value and functional for the family as they are the part of the family’s subsistence activities. In urban areas children are engaged in domestic work as well assign domestic services. In addition to fulfilling their own home assignments, they either assist then parents who work as domestic servants or they themselves work as domestic servants which is a form of wage labour.

3)                  Bonded Labour: In the inter generational bondage system, children have to contribute a specified amount of work as part of a peasant family’s fandalvent.

In second type of bondage, the indebted parents pledge their children for the sake of their needs.

4)                  Wage Labour: There are two types of wage labourers. In one type, children work in family-wise and on the other hand industrial-wise. The former refers to farming, household industry, domestic services and traditional crafts. In the later people generally go to urban areas, where they usually work in small factories firms and different work shops etc.

CHILD LABOUR IN PAKISTAN:

            In 1996 the provincial distribution indicates that the volume of child labour in Punjab was about 1.9 million which was about 60% of the total child labour in the country. Next comes N.W.F.P which shows about 1 million child labour while the lowest figure was for Baluchistan province because of lesser population. (ILO, IPEC, 1996, p. 16).

            According to the child labour survey conducted by federal Bureau of statistics ministry of labour, manpower, and overseas Pakistan is ILO and IPEC, out of these 3.3 million child workers between the aged of 5 to 14 years, including 2.4 million (73%) are boys and 0.9 million (27%) are girls. In 1997 officially there were 3.3 million workers in the country. These figures were included both the urban and rural sectors. Non governmental sources put the figures beyond ten millions (SAARC, 1997).

            There are 29 million children of school going age who are not going to school in Pakistan. They are either engaged in labour or not doing any thing. The HRCP (Human Rights Commission of Pakistan) estimates the number to be as high as 15 million. According to Qurat-ul-ain Sadozai, she declared in her Article “Facts of child poverty” in the news international, Monday, July 3, 2002.

            “In Pakistan, children of 15 years form nearly half of the country’s population of 144 million and every third child lives below the poverty line due to which they are forced into begging and labour”.

the effects of child labour on society:

            Following are the effects of child labour on society:

1)      Health of society.

2)      Juvenile delinquency.

3)      Moral values

4)      Crime.

5)      Illiteracy.

6)      Drug addiction.

7)      Beggary.

8)      Low living standard.

the effects of child labour on child himself

            The child labour has serious effects on child himself. These effects can be physical, psychological, social and economic.

            Children working in street or roads are likely to become the patient of cancer tuberculosis (TB) etc. Girls working as domestic servants away from their homes, some times in various Asian countries are frequent victimize of physical mental and social abuse.

            Long working hours not only affects their physical development, but also damage their social development. When these children go back to home after working in these places for long hours they don’t participate in any social activity and at once go to bed.