Economics or inadequate legal framework?
A child is a blooming flower of paradise, a shining star of a scintillating spiral galaxy. Indubitably, a child is a beautiful creation of God, his interior as well as exterior is clean and pure, has a clean heart absolutely free from cunningness. Parents drown in euphoria when they see their child wearing school uniform and leaving for school early in the morning. However, there exists another class of children who are deprived of such privilege due to socio-economic constraints and burdens; all they do is watch others go to school in utter despair. Sad reality is that they are compelled by circumstances to destroy their dreams and become breadwinners for their families. Child labour is nowadays a very serious international dilemma which to a great extent has adversely affected many countries of the world especially in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) defines child labour as the condition “when a child is working during early age or when he overworks or gives overtime to labour or he works due to the psychologically, socially, and materialistic pressure or he becomes ready to labour on a very low pay”. In Pakistan child labour is a product of myriad of socio-economic factors and has its origins in abject poverty, dearth of opportunities, rapid population explosion, acute unemployment, unequal circulation of income, uneven division of resources, absence of trickledown effect of economic growth, and archaic social customs. The obscenest form of child labour in Pakistan is existent in brick kilns, carpet weaving, glass bangles, agriculture, fisheries, coal mines, farming, domestic service, begging, smuggling, construction, leather goods, automobile workshops and carpentry.
Child labour takes filthiest form when it exists as bonded labour which occurs when a family accepts an advance sum of money to hand over a child to an employer. In majority of the cases the family is unable to raise enough money to pay off the debt and buy the child back. The remuneration package is designed in such a way that the costs and mark-up are subtracted from a child’s income in such proportions that it becomes practically impossible to reimburse the loan. In some instances, bonded labour is generational i.e., a child’s grandfather was pledged to an employer several years ago with an agreement that each generation will make available the employer with a new worker. Bonded labour is a social malaise, a form of servitude that reflects the conditions of excessive destitution.
On international stage, bonded labour was declared unlawful by UN Supplementary Convention on Abolition of Slavery in 1956. Apart from that, it is proscribed by Article 8 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 7 of International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The areas where bonded child labour is very much rampant in Pakistan include prostitution, small restaurants and teashops, shops at truck and bus stops and domestic in-house services. Statutory framework in Pakistan encompasses The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992 which explicitly prohibits the system of bonded labour. However, despite existence of law prohibiting bonded labour, this pitiable practice is widespread and is consistently proliferating in our Pakistan. It will be pertinent to mention here that the vast majority of bonded labourers are people belonging to the lowest stratum of society e.g., Christians, and people from casts commonly, yet unfortunately, known as kami kameen in our society.
Child labour in the form of domestic labour is the most dangerous since it takes place behind the veil and goes totally unnoticed by the government as the existing statutory schemes do not consider domestic work as an unsafe occupation. Many of the children employed in domestic labour are mentally tortured, physically battered and sexually abused and are forced to labour for long hours without adequate compensation. Another hazardous activity in which many children are involved nowadays is the surgical tool industry of Pakistan. The innocent children have to face many awful things in this industry including severe burns, respiratory infections etc. Another booming challenge which poses great threat is the presence of street children, who are mostly employed in activities like shoe-shining, selling flowers, pens, books etc. The problem of children living on the street is very unique as they are either on their own or dependent on their employers and are thus fully prone to all kinds of exploitation.
The supreme law of the land and statutory arrangements in Pakistan to a great extent address the problem of child labour. As far as foreign treaties are concerned, the government of Pakistan has endorsed certain conventions for instance 1957 ILO Forced Labour Convention and 1990 UN Rights of the Child Convention. Both the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1973 and the relevant labour laws prohibit the employment of children before the age of 14 years. Article 3 of the Constitution envisages the idea that the state shall ensure the elimination of all forms of exploitation thus reflecting the socialist character of the Constitution. Article 11(3) of the Constitution supports the notion that no child below the age of 14 years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment. Article 25 A proclaims that the state shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of five to sixteen years. Last but not the least Article 37(e) of the Constitution encompasses the idea that the state shall ensure humane conditions of work and also ensure that children are not employed in vocations unsuited to their age.
Apart from the constitutional provisions, the statutory arrangements also prohibit and discourage practice of child labour. For instance, The Employment of Children Act 1991 says that whosoever employs any child or permits any child to work in occupations and processes mentioned (in the Act) shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year or with fine which may extend to PKR 20, 000 or with both. Introduction of Bonded Labour Abolition Act 1992 annulled all the debts of people in bonded labour. Other laws which deal with the employment of children are The Employment of Children Rules 1995, Mines Act 1923, The Children Act 1933,The Factories Act 1934 etc.
Despite existence of aforementioned laws, the problem of child labour has further exacerbated in the last two decades. The leadership needs to understand that laws and government prohibitions against child labour only have a partial and limited impact. For instance, almost a decade has passed since the establishment of Punjab Child Protection Bureau but its effectiveness till date is very nominal. The reason behind its little success is incompetence of lawmakers to understand the real cause behind child labour i.e., financial burdens. Instead of inflicting punishment on parents, the government should motivate the parents through financial incentives i.e., parents should consider enrolment in school a lucrative investment.
In order to lure the children and their families even towards free education, the leadership should adopt a pragmatic approach and keep in mind the famous maxim that ‘law doesn’t matter, economics does’. The state should launch child education incentive programmes i.e., parent of every school going child will get fixed monthly stipend from the state. The problem can be resolved and best understood in terms of theories of economics e.g., cost benefit analysis and doctrine of opportunity cost. Since the child works and earns bread and butter for his family, the cost of not sending child to work, his lost earnings, should be covered by the state through inception of aforementioned financial support programme. In order to nip the evil in the bud, we first need to dig out the root of the problem. Children of poor families are employed in labour because they are main source of income for the households. Even if the education is free and compulsory, many will still avoid it due to the very reason that their absence from work will disturb the financial stability of their family.
Child labour is a not just a legal issue rather it is a complex socio-economic problem which demands a range of well thought solutions including innovative legal and economic reforms. At the moment it seems like major economic surgery is required to tackle child labour in Pakistan and the best way of doing that is urgent introduction and implementation of nationwide financial incentive programmes in the education sector. System of monetary rewards and stipends will provide extrinsic motivation to parents and will discourage them from involving their child in labour work. As Mark Twain rightly said: “The lack of money is the root of all evil.”
