Child labour in Pakistan

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This article discusses the situation of child labour in Pakistan.

Contents
[hide]

1 Child Labor In Pakistan

2 Iqbal Masih's effect on the Issue of Child Labor in Pakistan

3 Situation of Child Labor In Pakistan

4 Government Policies on Child Labour

5 Efforts to reduce child labour

o 5.1 Child Labour in Pakistan - Football Stitching
o 5.2 Save the Children
o 5.3 SPARC
o 5.4 Other NGOs

6 References

[edit] Child Labor In Pakistan

Many nations claim that there is a need for eliminating child labor in Pakistan. Child labor and
child trafficking have shown to negatively affect human capital development and the overall
national development agenda. Many claim that when children do not go to school, they are
denied the knowledge and skills needed for national development.[1] Educating children, rather
than forcing them to work, could yield enormous economic benefits for developing nations,
through increased productivity and human capital. Benefits of education however large, may not
be enough to convince poverty struck families to stop sending children to work as the concern

over household survival outweighs that of childrens future earnings, therefore this is the
problem that Pakistan faces today.[2]

[edit] Iqbal Masih's effect on the Issue of Child Labor in

Pakistan
See also: Iqbal Masih
Iqbal Masih was forced into bonded labor at four and escaped at age 10. He became a prominent
figure in the Bonded Labour Liberation Front. He died when he was 12 and shot by a shotgun.[3]
Iqbal's life was adapted into a book that raised international awareness to child labor in Pakistan.

[edit] Situation of Child Labor In Pakistan

Pakistan has a per-capita income of approximately $1900. A middle class person in Pakistan
earns around $5 a day on average.The average Pakistani has to feed nine or ten people with their
daily wage. Further to that there is also the high inflation rate to contend with.[4] As of 2008,
17.2% of the total population lives below the poverty line, which is the lowest figure in the
history of Pakistan.[5] Poverty levels in Pakistan appear to necessitate that children work in order
to allow families to reach their target takehome pay.[6] On the side of the firms, the low cost of
child labor gave manufacturers a significant advantage in the Western marketplace, where they
undersell their competitors from countries prohibiting child labor, often by improbable amounts.
[7]

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated in the 1990s that 11 million children were
working in the country, half of those under the age of ten. In 1996, the median age for a child
entering the work force was seven, down from eight years old 2 years prior. It was estimated that
one quarter of the countries work force was made up of child laborers.[8] As of 20052006, it is
estimated that 37 per cent of working boys were employed in the wholesale and retail industry in
urban areas, followed by 22 per cent in the service industry and 22 per cent in manufacturing. As
for the girls 48 per cent were employed in the service industry while 39 per cent were employed
in manufacturing. In rural areas, 68 per cent of working boys were joined by 82 per cent of
working girls. In the wholesale and retail industry the percentage of girl were 11 per cent
followed by 11 per cent in manufacturing.[9]
Child labor in Pakistan is perhaps most rampant in a north-western province called Sialkot, near
the border with Kashmir, which is an important production centre for exports goods such as
sporting goods.[10] Thousands of Pakistani children, many under the age of 10, get less than 10p
an hour stitching soccer balls for export around the world. About three-quarters of all the highquality footballs used in international competitions are made here[11] where child labour is
perhaps the most rampant(In 1994, it pumped the equivalent of $385 million into the Pakistan
economy) . [12]

[edit] Government Policies on Child Labour

A number of laws contain provisions prohibiting child labour or regulating the working
conditions of child and adolescent workers. The most important laws are: The Factories Act
1934. The West Pakistan Shops and Establishments Ordinance 1969. The Employment of
Children Act 1991 The Bonded Labour System Abolition Act 1992. The Punjab Compulsory
Education Act 1994[13]
Child labor remains one of the major problems afflicting Pakistan and its children. Pakistan has
passed laws in an attempt to limit child labor and indentured servitudebut those laws are
universally ignored, and some 11 million children, aged four to fourteen, keep that country's
factories operating, often working in brutal and squalid conditions.[14]

[edit] Efforts to reduce child labour

NGO groups against child labor have been raising awareness of the exploitation of children in
Pakistan.[15]

[edit] Child Labour in Pakistan - Football Stitching

By the late 1990s, Pakistan had come to account for 75 percent of total world production of
soccer balls (or footballs, as they are known in most countries), and 71 percent of all soccer
ball imports into the United States. The International Labor Rights Forum and allies called
attention to rampant child labor in the soccer ball industry. According to investigations,
thousands of children between the ages of 5 and 14 were putting in as many as 10 to 11 hours per
day stitching.[16] Then, the International Labor Organization, UNICEF, Save the Children, and
the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry signed the Partners' Agreement to Eliminate
Child Labor in the Soccer Industry in Pakistan on February 14, 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia.[17]

[edit] Save the Children

Save the children has also been working with some of the sporting goods manufacturers
represented by the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) and their international
partner brands, represented by the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI).
This joint effort is aimed at ensuring that children are not employed to stitch footballs.[18] Save
the Children (UK) includes disseminating information about child labour on major networks like
CBS and the like.[19]
Save the Children has also worked on project with the British Secretary of State for International
Development to phase out child labour in Sialkot. The 750,000 donated by Britain will be spent
on education and training, and also on setting up credit and savings schemes in an attempt to
provide alternatives to bonded labour.[20]

[edit] SPARC
SPARC has conducted research that goes into producing its publications, including three major
books on child labor, juvenile justice and child rights. Its annual report The State of Pakistans

Children and a large number of brochures, SPARC has conducted a number of research studies.
[21]
SPARC has continued to ask successive governments to upgrade their laws to set a legal age
limit for employment in Pakistan, although they have not been successful in doing so.[22]

[edit] Other NGOs

Other NGOs that has worked on the issue of child labor in Pakistan includes organisation such as
UNICEF.[23] UNICEF supported the NCCWD in drafting of the Child Protection Law and the
Child Protection Policy and initiated the establishment of Child Protection Monitoring and Data
Collecting System.Many other NGO such as ROZAN has work to protect the child in NGO.
[24]
SPARC is a NGO.

[edit] References
1.

^ "Child Labor Affect Human Capital Development". Ghana News Agency.

http://www.modernghana.com/news/228559/1/child-labour-affect-human-capital-developmentchie.html. Retrieved 22 February 2011.

2.

^ Madslien, Jorn (4 February 2004). "ILO: 'Child labour prevents development'". BBC
News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3451117.stm. Retrieved 23 Feb 2011.

3.

^ http://mirrorimage.com/iqbal/

4.

^ "Child Labor in Pakistan".

http://library.thinkquest.org/03oct/01908/800/childlaborinpakistan.htm. Retrieved 1 March 2011.

5.

^ "UNDP Reports Pakistan Poverty Declined to 17%, Under Musharraf". Pakistan Daily.
http://www.daily.pk/undp-reports-pakistan-poverty-declined-to-17-under-musharraf-10324/.
Retrieved 23 Feb 2011.

6.

^ S. Denice, Doreen. "Towards the Eradication of Child Labor in Pakistan". The Fletcher
School Online Journal.

7.

^ Silvers, Jonathan. "Child Labor in Pakistan". The Atlantic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/02/child-labor-in-pakistan/4660/.

8.

^ "Child Labor in Pakistan". Fair Trade Sports.

http://fairtradesports.com/2009/09/25/child-labor-in-pakistan/.

9.

^ Xiaohui, Hou (2010). Wealth: Crucial but Not Sufficient - Evidence from Pakistan on
Economic Growth, Child Labour and Schooling.

10.
11.
12.

^ "Pakistan". Save the children. http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/en/pakistan.htm.

^ "Short kicks off Pakistan child labour project". BBC News. Oct 29 1997.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/17873.stm.
^ "Nike". scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/41449165/nike. Retrieved 22 Feb 2011.

13.

^ Madslien, Jorn (4 February 2004). "ILO: 'Child labour prevents development'". BBC
News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3451117.stm. Retrieved 23 Feb 2011.

14.

^ "Child Labour affect Human Capital Development - Chief Justice". Ghana News
Agency.

15.

^ "Sub Group on Child Labor". Child Rights Information Network.

http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/publications/NGOCRC/subgroup-childlabour.asp.

16.

^ "Stop Child And Forced Labor". International Labor Rights Forum.

http://www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/foulball-campaign/pakistan. Retrieved Feb 2011.

17.

^ "Atlanta Agreement". http://www.imacpak.org/atlanta.htm. Retrieved Feb 2011.

18.

^ Husselbee, David (2000). NGOs as development partners to the corporates: Child

football Stichers in Pakistan. pp. 377389.

19.

^ A Dark Side of Institutional Entrepreneurship: Soccer Balls, Child Laboour and

Postcolonial Impoverishment. 2007.

20.

^ "Pakistan Flood 2010 - Six Months On". Save the Children.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2011.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/KKAA-8DJ56Efull_report.pdf/$File/full_report.pdf.

21.

^ "Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), Pakistan". Childwatch
International Research Network. http://www.childwatch.uio.no/research/childrenrights/sparc.html.

22.

^ Denice, Doreen. "Towards the Eradication of Child Labor in Pakistan". The Fletcher
School Online Journal..

23.

^ Silvers, Jonathan. "Child Labor in Pakistan". The Atlantic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/02/child-labor-in-pakistan/4660/.

24.

^ "Child Protection". UNICEF. http://www.unicef.org/pakistan/partners_1790.htm.

[show]

Economy of Pakistan

[show]

Socio-economic issues in Pakistan

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