Professional Documents
Culture Documents
"Child labor" is work for children who are under the legal age required
for labor (i.e. 18) & such work harms or exploits them physically,
mentally, morally & by blocking their access to education and their
legal rights.
Contemporary Perspective:
Example:
For instance, a child who works after school with the choice of his
interest might actually benefit from learning how to work, gaining
responsibility, and earn a bit of money. But what if the child is not paid
or is under paid? What if the child is made to work with force under
conditions that are hazardous to his health & so on? Then he or she is
getting exploited through child labor...
We would start off by pointing out the reasons for the lack of a stable
environment in our country relative to child labor and describe how
each sector is responsible for exploiting children’s rights.
Government’s Role.
Consumer’s Role.
Economic Factors.
Although many articles and policies are written by the legal authorities
in Pakistan; unfortunately none are exercised towards its practical
implementation. And of these we would emphasize on “The
Employment of Children Act (ECA), 1991” and show how even after its
implementation it still suffers the dilemma of rational justification.
Where 34 percent of the people living below the poverty line, the
monetary requirement of these families are in turn, exploited by
employers who hire children often paying them a fraction of what they
do to their adult counter parts. Furthermore these bonded child
laborers are forced to take loans from these industrialists at high
interest rates which in order to attempt to repay means they have to
accept low wages.
People cannot run away as there is no where to go and in any case the
rest of the debtors family would then become liable for the debt and
are forced to sell their children into what is nothing short of forced
slavery.
And the lack of abolition of Child Labor in Pakistan would make our
labor force less than 10 percent of the part of those new workers which
would come from developing nation. How many will have had to work
at an early age, destroying their health or hampering their education?
The economic factors that further give rise to child labor in Pakistan
can be divided into three categories:
Supply and demand of labor at the level of the enterprise or the firm.
And so on…
(1)The families (and the economy) would lose the income generated
by children.
The reason for this model’s short term failure is that child work
results from complex interweaving of need, tradition, culture,
family dynamics and the availability of alternative activities for
children.
Under agreements with the ILO and UNICEF, currently under age
workers getting removed from their jobs should be put into
industry-supported schools and paid stipends amounting to part
of the money they had been earning in their jobs. The schools
should be supported with money contributed not only by
Government and other organizations but also by the associated
manufacturers that had previously exploited these children
through child labor, although for a temporary period of time.
Submitted by:
Beenish Jabbar
Anum Shahid
Mariam Sikander
Sibgha Iqbal