Business Communication =================================

Child Labour

INTRODUCTION
Who is a Child?
International conventions define children as aged 18 and under. Individual
governments may define "child" according to different ages or other criteria.
"Child" and "childhood" are also defined differently by different cultures. A
"child" is not necessarily delineated by a fixed age. Social scientists point out
that child’s abilities and maturities vary so much that defining a child's maturity
by calendar age can be misleading.

Child Labor
Child labor is the employment of children at regular and sustained labor. "Child
labor" is; generally speaking, work for children that harm them or exploits
them in some way physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking access to
education. UNICEF defines child labor as work that exceeds a minimum
number of hours, depending on the age of a child and on the type of work. Such
work is considered harmful to the child and should therefore be eliminated.
There is no universally accepted definition of child labor. Varying definitions
of the term are used by international organizations, non-governmental
organizations, trade unions and other interest groups. Writers and speakers
don't always speak what definition they are using and that often leads to
confusion.

Fig. 1.2.1 Children working

CAUSES OF CHILD LABOR

Children start work when they are too young, or take on work that is hazardous,
for many reasons. Children in developing countries do so because they and
their families need the extra income. Indeed, many end up working unpaid for
their employers in exchange for their board and lodging. In contrast, children in

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industrialized countries, seek work for quite different reasons, usually to
establish financial independence from their parents. Here we focus on children
who are driven into the world of work by poverty. However, even for poor
families there are decisions to make about what work children should take on.
Parents rarely wish to expose their children to danger, but may see no
alternative. All too often, both parents and young people are unaware of the
risks involved.

The main causes or reasons for creating child labor

OVER POPULATION:
Most of the Asian and African countries are 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:
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.

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DISCRIMINATION AGAINST MINORITY GROUPS:

Some children also leave school and start work earlier than others because of
their origin or identity. In Latin America, indigenous children start work first.
In South Asia, the caste system determines that children from dalit families
(who have low status in the caste hierarchy) or adivasi (tribal or indigenous)
communities start work first or do not attend school at all.
“NIMBLE FINGERS”:
In the country with the largest number of child labourers in the world, India,
adults justify the involvement of children in certain jobs on the grounds that
only they have the “nimble fingers” which enable them to give special attention
to detail. Some sorts of work, they argue, cannot be performed by adults. This
is just one of many myths used to justify the numbers of children working
today, myths which offer largely spurious arguments but strike a chord with
local public opinion and come to be believed because they are repeated so
often.

INADEQUATE LAWS:
More than 130 countries have signed an international convention saying that
children may not work full-time before 14 or 15 years of age. However, in
some of the countries concerned, laws on this are confusing or vague and not
enforced. There are particular difficulties when laws are inconsistent – for
example, one dictating that children must remain in school until they are 12,
while another decrees that they may not start work until 14: the inconsistency is
almost bound to precipitate children into the labour market before they reach
the legal minimum age
POOR INFRASTRUCTURE:
Another factor is the practical difficulty of establishing a child’s actual age in
countries where the infrastructure may not be in place for e.g. systematic birth
registration. This can disadvantage children in many ways – law enforcers are
hampered because they do not have the means to absolutely establish the ages
of e.g. teenagers, and, without appropriate documentation, young people may
also be denied access to state services such as schools.
THE ROLE OF EDUCATION:
Children who receive little or no school education miss out on the knowledge
that can create options for them later in life. Without it, they make less
contribution as adults and are more exposed to exploitation and abuse. Not
attending school is consequently both a cause and effect of child labour.
The shortcomings of existing school systems remain a major factor that
“pushes” children on to the labour market when they are too young. Sending
children to school does not come without a cost. In many countries, parents still
pay a fee for their children to attend primary school, as well as buying books
and providing a school uniform. For a poor family these are significant costs,
alongside the lack of income for the household while a child is at school.

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Historical Background
The majority of the world’s children do some work every day, usually in the
form of household chores or an after school job, which develop skills and a
sense of responsibility. However, according to the International Labor
Organization (ILO) the harsh reality is that 390 million child-workers
worldwide are involved in activities that are either hazardous, excessive or
where their employers exploit them. Inevitably, the emotional, physical and
psychological effects for these children can be extremely damaging and such
work leaves little or no time for play or school.
The rise of the factory system in the nineteenth century led to widespread
employment of children as cheap laborers. In United States, child labor was
uncontroversial in the colonial period, as children worked on family farms or
would enter into trade apprenticeships between ages 10 and 14. Educational
reformers in the mid-nineteenth century pressed for legislation that would
establish wage minimums and school attendance requirements. These efforts at
the social protection of children were stymied by the influx of southern and
eastern European immigrants, the patchwork quality of American state
legislation and the powerful interests who sought, for economic reasons, to
confine the protective legislation. Child labor grew such that by 1900, 18
percent of 10-15 year olds the official figure of 1.75 million were employed.
One-quarter of southern cotton mill employees were under 15 half of these
children were under 12. After the Civil War, the availability of natural
resources, new inventions, and a receptive market combined to fuel an
industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries many children were drawn into the labor force. Factory wages were
so low that children often had to work to help support their families. Businesses
liked to hire children because they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages
than adults, and their small hands made them more adept at handling small
parts and tools.

By the early 1900s many Americans were calling child labor "child slavery"
and were demanding an end to it. They argued that long hours of work
deprived children of the opportunity of an education to prepare themselves for
a better future. Instead, child labor condemned them to a future of illiteracy,
poverty, and continuing misery. The National Child Labor Committee was
organized in 1904 to address the problem. In 1904 a group of progressive
reformers founded the National Child Labor Committee, an organization whose
goal was the abolition of child labor. The organization received a charter from
Congress in 1907. It hired teams of investigators to gather evidence of children
working in harsh conditions and then organized exhibitions with photographs
and statistics to dramatize the plight of these children. Along with numerous
state child labor groups, the movement "pioneered the techniques of mass
political action, including investigations by experts, the widespread use of
photography to dramatize the poor conditions of children at work, pamphlets,
leaflets and mass mailings to reach the public and sophisticated lobbying. The

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number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for
wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890 to 2 million in 1910.

These efforts resulted in the establishment in 1912 of the Children's Bureau as

a federal information clearinghouse. In 1913 the Children's Bureau was
transferred to the Department of Labor. When Congress passed federal child
labor laws in 1916 and 1918, they were declared unconstitutional by the
Supreme Court.

By 1920 the number of child laborers was cut to nearly half of what it had been
in 1910. Child labor opponents managed to press for Congressional passage of
a constitutional amendment authorizing federal child labor legislation in 1924
church groups and farm organizations prevented ratification. But Child labor
came under the international spotlight in the 1990s.

For the first time the industrialized world’s diplomats and economists started
discussing why vast numbers of children were working rather than being
educated, and what should be done about it. The focus was on developing
countries. This new attention to an old issue was largely due to worries raised
by people in industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom. Trade
unionists, politicians and campaigners for social justice voiced concern that
jobs were disappearing rapidly as businesses switched production from the
industrialized world to developing countries where labor costs were much
lower.

Simultaneously, organizations in developing countries sounded the alarm when

they saw children working longer and longer hours not only producing goods
for export, but also providing a cheap and malleable workforce for the local
economy. As more attention was given to the work children were performing,
so the statistics about the numbers involved became more startling. In the early
1990s, the number of children between 5 and 14 in full-time employment had
been 100 million but by 1996 it was 120 million.

HOW MANY CHILD LABOUR ARE THERE?

The ILO estimates, "246 million child workers aged 5 and 17 were involved in
child labor, of which 171 million were involved in work that by its nature is
hazardous to their safety, physical or mental health, and moral development.
Moreover, some 8.4 million children were engaged in so-called 'unconditional'
worst forms of child labor, which include forced and bonded labor, the use of
children in armed conflict, trafficking in children and commercial sexual
exploitation."
However, it decreased into 218 million or roughly 11 percent in 2004.
This only means that the international action done world wide was able to fight
child labor and has been very effective in its course of actions.

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Myths on Child Labor
According to UNICEF (1997), there are four myths that surround the issue of
child labor and these are the followings:
• Child Labor is only a problem of developing countries found in the
region of Africa, Asia and Latin America. This may be expected due to
the prevailing economic conditions of these countries, still pockets of
child labor can be found in highly industrialized countries such as US
etc.
• Child Labor will never be eliminated until poverty disappears. UNICEF
points out that child labor should be eliminated interdependently of
poverty. Even the poorest countries should do their best so as to
decrease the number of child labor cases.
• Child laborers only work on export industries. Only a small portion of
child labor cases work in export industries, only about 9%. Most child
workers can be found in the informal sectors of society, out in the
streets, work in agriculture or hidden in every home – far from the eyes
of labor inspectors.
• The only way to eliminate child labor is for the government and
consumers to pose sanctions and boycotts. This will not really help at all
and will just make the problem worst. Likewise, it doesn’t give a huge
impact since portions of child labor cases are found in that sector. A
comprehensive strategy that supports and develops local initiatives and
provides alternatives is the only proper seen by UNICEF should be done
in order to combat child labor.

FACTS & FIGURES OF CHILD LABOR IN ASIA AND

WORLDWIDE

According to estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in their

report of June 2006, the numbers of children working aged 5 to 14 is:

• Globally 190 million

• In Asia 122 million
• In sub-Saharan Africa 50 million. In fact 26 percent of all
children work here
• In Latin America 5 million.
• In the rest of the world 13 million.
• Across Africa, there are an estimated 80 million child
workers, a number that could rise to 100 million by 2015.

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STATICTICS ABOUT CHILD LABOR
• The vast majority of working children about 70 per cent work in the
agriculture sector.
• Sub-Saharan Africa has an estimated 48 million child workers.
• Almost one child in three (29 per cent) below the age of 15 is
economically active,15 per cent of children in the Middle East and
North Africa are working; approximately 2.5 million and 2.4 million
children are working in developed and transition economies
respectively.
• A recent UNICEF survey in 25 countries in just one region, sub-Saharan
Africa, revealed that almost one-third of the working children aged
between 5 and 14 were involved in the “unconditional worst forms” of
child labor.
• In addition, almost 10 per cent were working for more than 43 hours a
week, threatening their wellbeing.
• The incidence of child labor is highest in Africa, where 41% of 5- to 14-
year-olds are known to work, compared with 21% in Asia and 17% in
Latin America and the Caribbean.
• Nevertheless, with its higher population, Asia has the largest total
number of working
• Children, 60 per cent of the world’s total.
• Official figures produced by the ILO indicate that at least 200 million
young children under the age of 15 are working to support themselves
and their families. The actual total may be twice as high.

TYPES OF CHILD LABOR

Child Labor is not only found in factories, but also in many other places. Their
%age is;

• Agricultural Labor 67%

• Wholesale9%

• Manufacturing ex. industry 11%

• Personal/Social Services-8%

• Others-5%

Fig.7.1 Distribution of economically active children (N03.3 million) in the labour force of Pakistan

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Efforts against child labor
The International Labor Organization’s International Programme on the
Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) was created in 1992 with the overall goal of
the progressive elimination of child labor, which was to be achieved through
strengthening the capacity of countries to deal with the problem and promoting
a worldwide movement to combat child labor. IPEC currently has operations in
88 countries, with an annual expenditure on technical cooperation projects that
reached over US$61 million in 2008. It is the largest Programme of its kind
globally and the biggest single operational Programme of the ILO.
The number and range of IPEC’s partners have expanded over the years and
now include employers’ and workers’ organizations, other international and
government agencies, private businesses, community-based organizations,
NGOs, the media, parliamentarians, the judiciary, universities, religious groups
and, of course, children and their families.
IPEC's work to eliminate child labor is an important facet of the ILO's Decent
Work Agenda. Child labor not only prevents children from acquiring the skills
and education they need for a better future, it also perpetuates poverty and
affects national economies through losses in competitiveness, productivity and
potential income. Withdrawing children from child labor, providing them with
education and assisting their families with training and employment
opportunities contribute directly to creating decent work for adults.

Development Solutions to Child Labour

A rights-based approach which relies on laws and their enforcement is
therefore insufficient in isolation from broader human development
considerations. But such actions will be ineffective in the absence of
institutional capacity to rehabilitate the children and assist their families in
overcoming the loss of income.
Laws need to be complemented with developments programmed which
recognize the practical difficulties in reintegration of children into formal
education. Development agencies are now more likely to acknowledge that
children themselves should be consulted. Many children are anxious to find
ways of combining education with the economic expediency of helping their
families.
Formal global development strategies have tended to disregard the child labour
agenda. For example, the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for school
enrolment aims for a total of five years of education, far less than implied by
child labour conventions. There is increasing realization that vital MDGs for
poverty, education and health will not be achieved whilst child labor thrives.
A cost/benefit analysis carried out by the UN in 2003 convincingly
demonstrated the value of eliminating child labor by reference to the long term
economic benefit of a more skilled and healthy workforce. As further evidence
of interdependence, there is correlation between those countries lagging behind
the MDG for education and those in which child labor thrives, such as Pakistan

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and Nepal. The integration of child labor concerns into national development
strategies, backed by effective legislation, is therefore the preferred route to a
lasting solution.

Child Labour in Pakistan

Like elsewhere across the South Asia where governments are suffering from
bad administration and poor governance, Pakistan is also suffering from the
lingering peril of child labor and the economic exploitation of the poor.
Because of peculiar socio-economic conditions and the chaotic political
situations in the third world countries like Pakistan, Governments and the
public sector institutions responsible for keeping an eye on the child labor and
child exploitation, often fail to come up to the expectations of the society.

It has been observed that rising economic costs of life often resulting in falling
living standards, lingering political crises, rising unemployment and poor
planning, joblessness, unplanned population migration to mega cities, rapid
urbanization, lack of education and many other factors have resulted in
spiraling child labor as poor families cannot afford to cope with multiple
economic crunch and use their children as a pawn to earn some extra pennies.
Child labor, with the passage of time, has emerged as the biggest challenge to
the society and the government in ensuring conductive atmosphere for the
children with poor economic background. Unfortunately, child labor is deeply
engraved in the social culture of Pakistan.

In Pakistan children aged 5 to 14 are above 40 million. During the last year, the
Federal Bureau of Statistics released the results of its survey funded by ILO’s
IPEC (International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor). The findings
were that 3.8 million children age group of 5-14 years are working in Pakistan
out of total 40 million children in this age group; fifty percent of these
economically active children are in age group of 5 to 9 years. Even out of these
3.8 million economically active children, 2.7 million were claimed to be
working in the agriculture sector. Two million and four hundred thousand
(73%) of them were said to be boys Pakistan are leading lines below the line of
poverty, whereas the Social Policy Development Centre (SPDC) 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%.Consider 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

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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.

The issue of child labor and the economic exploitation of children of a lesser
God has always been a burning issue in Pakistan. Successive governments tried
to hush up this huge issue, having multiple implications, while civil society and
the media attempts to draw out kaleidoscopic view of the spiraling problem.
While child labor has serious impact on the children’s mental and social
development, it also impedes their emotional growth. Children are our only
hope for a better future and if we desire a better and prosperous Pakistan then
we must give them their right of education. Education is the foremost
fundamental right of the children which must be protected and given to each
and every child. Although a number of protecting laws contain provisions
prohibiting child labor or regulating the working conditions of children and
adolescent workers but the issue still remain unresolved. Pakistan has enacted
many laws for eradicating child labor. The Constitution of Islamic Republic of
Pakistan states that;
“No child below the age of fourteen shall be engaged in any factory or mine or
in any other hazardous employment.” And also, “All forms of forced labor and
traffic in human beings are prohibited.”

Children’s like as flowers, if we force on these then their souls was broken, it is
the major issue of any type of country where no any way to help poor peoples
and their children, so we discuss on child labour in Pakistan. Pakistan is poor
country, not poor from starting but because of our government polices are not
right for any institution of our country. Pakistan always helpless. Pakistan's
government never do for own country what they do for poor peoples. If any
one living in that country it means they are not in own safe country but in like
as jail, but others countries jail also good from this countries people living. If
any country wants progress then education is must. Means society of middle
class family they give education to their children but any poor peoples can't do
this, because a lot of money need for any education for children, but our
government always quite on this issue, only government of Pakistan is begging
money from others countries from 61 years not for own country but only for
own aims it means from 61 years no one good leader who think about their
peoples and their children but here allot of corruption in any government
department. Pakistan government never thinks about poor peoples how they
survive in life and how get money, how give education to our children. So we
need to think about child labour and those children’s also use drugs because
they don’t know about these things and they are away from their parents so
they do as they like and allot of children died because of using drugs and many
children died because of abusing.

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Pakistan Labour force Graph and Data

Percent
Year Labor force Rank Table 9.1.1
Change
Pakistan labour
2003 40,400,000 11 force
2004 43,980,000 11 8.86 %
2005 45,430,000 10 3.30 %
2006 46,840,000 10 3.10 %
2007 48,290,000 10 3.10 %
2008 48,230,000 10 -0.12 %

Fig. 9.1.1 Labour force

List of occupations and categories of

work
• Work with power driven cutting machinery like saws, shears, and
guillotines, (Thrashers, fodder cutting machines, also marbles)
• Work with live electrical wires over 50V.
• All operation related to leather tanning process e.g. soaking, dismissal,
liming chrome tanning, deliming, pickling defleshing, and ink
application.

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• Mixing or application or pesticides insecticide/fumigation.
• Sandblasting and other work involving exposure to free silica.
• Work with exposure to all toxic, explosive and carcinogenic chemicals
heavy metals like nickel, mercury chromium, lead, arsenic, beryllium,
fiber glass.
• Work with exposure to cement dust (cement industry)
• Work with exposure to coal dust
• Manufacture and sale of fireworks explosives
• Work at the sites where Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Compressed
Natural Gas (CNG) are filled in cylinders.
• Work on glass and metal furnaces
• Work in the clothe printing, dyeing and finishing sections
• Work inside sewer pipelines, pits, storage tanks
• Stone crushing
• Lifting and carrying of heavy weight specially in transport industry (15b
kg and above)
• Work between 10 pm to 8 am (Hotel Industry)
• Carpet waving
• Working 2 meter above the floor
• All scavenging including hospital waste
• Tobacco process (including Niswar) and Manufacturing
• Deep fishing (commercial fishing/ sea food and fish processing Sheep
casing and wool industry)
• Ship breaking
• Surgical instrument manufacturing specially in vendors workshop
Bangles glass, furnaces

Child Labor in Rag Picking Business

A study conducted by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on
Rag Pickers/scavenger in 2003 reveals that there are roughly 89,500-106,500
children engaged in scavenging in five major cities of the country i.e. Karachi,
Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar and Islamabad. The survey identifies three types of
scavengers: migratory scavengers, roaming scavengers and site based
scavengers.

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Table 9.3.1 No. of rag pickers In Pakistan

National Laws Pertaining to Child

Labour
The Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan states: "No child below the
age of fourteen shall be engaged in any factory or mine or in any other
hazardous employment." Also, "All forms of forced labour and traffic in
human beings are prohibited." 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
It is a great pity that out of the 160 million population of Pakistan, it is
estimated that there are well over 10 million child laborers below the age of 18
years, the age where childhood ends. 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
Punjab government is giving special attention to the social sector development
for poverty alleviation and creating more job opportunities for the jobless. In
this regard, a sum of Rs.58.64 billion has been provided in the Annual

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Development Program of the Punjab province to improve health care,
education, social welfare and provision of water and sewerage facilities.
Punjab Government is also strengthening its “Center for Improvement of
Working Conditions and Environment” for improving occupational safety and
health surveillance of the workers. A sum of Rs.100 million is also being
utilized on seven different projects relating to labor welfare in the province.
However, child labor cannot be eliminated by government efforts alone. Civil
society, media, community leaders, and the scholars should also come out and
foster the need of keeping families small. We must lean to live according to our
economic means. Education is the only way to get rid of vicious circle of
poverty. It is also needed to bring behavioral change towards adoption of
affordable family size for better maternal and child health and sustainable
socio-economic development to achieve the desired population growth rate in
the province. Punjab government must adopt a holistic mechanism to fully
utilize it Population Welfare department for sensitizing the people about utility
of small families.

Child Labour and Education

Child labor is closely associated with poverty. Many poor families are unable
to afford school fees or other school costs. The family may depend on the
contribution that a working child makes to the household's income, and place
more importance on that than on education. And when a family has to make a
choice between sending either a boy or girl to school, it is often the girl who
loses out. More than ever today, children need a good quality education and
training if they are to acquire the skills necessary to succeed in the labor
market. However, in many countries the schools which are accessible to the
poor families are under resourced and inadequate. Poor facilities, over-sized
classes, and lack of trained teachers lead to low standards of education. In the
Millennium Development Goals the United Nations and the broader
international community set targets of ensuring that by 2015 all boys and girls
complete a full course of primary education and that there is gender parity in
education. These targets cannot be met unless the factors that generate child
labor and prevent poor families from sending children to school are addressed.
Among the most important steps required are:

• Provision of free and compulsory education

• Tackling barriers to girl’s education
• Ensuring that children have access to a school and a safe and quality
learning environment
• Providing catch up education opportunities for children and youth who
have so far missed out on formal schooling
• Tackling the worldwide shortage of teachers and ensuring a properly
trained and professional teaching force

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• Enforcing laws on child labor and education in line with international
standards
• Tackling poverty, and creating decent work for adults
• Raising public awareness to tackle child labor

Child laborers work for most of the time. In some cases they work for 16 hours
a day. This deprives the child from time to seek education, which is essential
for the overall development and future progress of the child. Some children are
bound by their employers as slaves and have to work all the time. In some
cases the poverty of the household and low level of parental education are
responsible for child labor. The value of education is less important to the
parents than the income the child earns for them. In the present money oriented
environment, the parents consider putting their child to work a better education
method than schooling as work assures survival and better future prospects.
This is due to the failure of many graduates to get a job, which is evident from
the high level of unemployment existing among them.

Poverty and child Labor

From a policy perspective, it is interesting to consider how child labor responds
to trends in economic growth and globalization. There is some evidence on the
effects of growth and trade expansion on poverty and poverty levels will reflect
changes associated with growth and trade reform for instance, in consumer and
producer prices, a first step in linking the available micro econometric evidence
with the larger questions of growth and Globalization is to study the relation of
poverty and child labor.
(a) Market Imperfections
Productive assets like land or enterprise-capital will have negative wealth
effects on child labor and, in a perfect-markets economy we would expect the
children of large landowners to be less likely to be in work than the children of
small landowners or landless agricultural workers. The common presumption is
that child labor emerges from the poorest households.

(b) Poverty Constraints

A negative effect of income on hours of work is, however, expected for adults
and for children and in poor as well as non-poor households. In other words, it
only indicates that Child leisure or child schooling is a normal good. Generally,
if the household is very poor, the income effect will tend to dominate the
substitution effect and the wage elasticity will be negative. Thus a testable
prediction of the hypothesis of compelling poverty is that the wage elasticity is
negative. Positive wage elasticity, on the other hand, is consistent with the view
that children work on account of the relative returns to school being low.

(c) Multiple Choices

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Men’s decision to work can be quite adequately modeled as a choice between
markets work, self-employment and leisure. In the case of women, a third
choice is home production i.e. productive work within the households for
which there is no explicit wage. In the case of children, a third choice is school
attendance. The child labor supply decision involves allocation of time between
labor, leisure and school. The basic assumptions are that leisure is a good and
labor is a bad and it is probably reasonable to assume that the marginal utility
of school attendance is positive.
Labor brings the benefits of a wage income today as well as the benefit of
experience accumulation and therefore higher wages tomorrow. Education also
promises higher wages tomorrow, so time allocation has to weigh up these
dynamic benefits since more education usually means less work experience.

Effects of Child Labour

1. Child labor deprives a child of a proper childhood.

2. He suffers physical and mental torture.
3. He becomes mentally and emotionally mature too fast which is a dangerous
sign.
4. Child labor creates and perpetuates poverty.
5. It condemns the child to a life of unskilled, badly paid work.
6. Ultimately this leads to child labor with each generation.

Policy approaches to tackle child labour

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
• Better labour market functioning

Protection and rehabilitation services

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• Remove children from hazardous and worst forms of child labour
• Enforce health and safety and other employment standards
• Provide access to education and health services
• Offer vocational training and other rehabilitation

Legislation
• Introduce and enforce child labour laws
• Introduce and enforce compulsory education laws

Solutions to End Child Labour

Attitudes will have to change if child labour is to be eradicated. One of the

main reasons why child labour 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 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, as stated in an article on Yes Pakistan, a website service
of the Human Development Foundation of North America. The government
could open schools that teach lifelong skills to children who must work.
Although the government has 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
labour – these must be enforced.

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Conclusion
As we all know that child labor is a major problem in all over the world today.
It is not only prevailing in developing countries but also it is a cursed in
developed countries. If we talk about Pakistan then the child under the age of
15 or may be less is engaged in labor work. The main problem for this is the
lack of education and lower income level of the people.

No doubt, child labor in United States also a dynamic problem but if we

compare it with other countries it is less than those. The main reason for
flourishing the child labor in the Pakistan is the instability of political
environment. The numbers of family members are more than the income level.

For the better eradication of this problem is the government support. Because
government should arranged such steps on international level through which
this type of curse could be removed or minimized. But, this is not only the
government responsibility, we as a citizen should forward our steps for
elimination of this problem. We should arrange seminars on v child labor;
different speeches can play a vital role in this regard. And moreover, media can
play a very important role for this. Different types of ads should be shown on
TV for the awareness of this problem. If we adopted such little steps than may
be a small part of this curse could be eliminated.

In a vivid, we can say 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. The West understood this a long time ago. Laws were
enacted very early to secure continued education for working children; and
now they have gone a step forward, and required completion of at least the
preliminary education of the child before he or she starts work. Better
solutions should be adopted for its removal otherwise it will soon lick the
pillars of the world.

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Recommendations:
• Awareness raising activities should be arranged so that people are informed
about children’s rights to education and leisure.

• Microfinance programs so that families have sufficient income and can keep
their children out of paid work.

• Provision of health and educational services for working children should be

ensured.

• Ensuring that children orphaned by AIDS are still accorded their rights and are
equipped with skills that will help them as adults

• Plan works to raise awareness of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

• Poor people should provide such opportunities to get themselves out of

poverty, and prevent and stop all types of exploitation of children.

• Providing all children with access to education is every government’s

responsibility, as well as a practical response to preventing child labor. Free,
compulsory, relevant and good-quality education services should be given.

• Laws and regulations against child labor must be in place and rigorously
enforced by governments should be in manner.

• Civil society and media engagement can change attitudes and it can condemn
child labor. It can also helps in raising awareness of its harmful effects on
health and development will help alleviate children’s vulnerability to abuse.

• Relevant school curricula and vocational training programs can be adapted to

students’ circumstances and will increase their school attendance.

• Social programs to support families in need and help them find alternative
income to replace their child’s employment will help prevent child labor. Such
support is also needed for child-headed households, orphans and children’s.

• To create awareness on the different aspects of child labor issue and start
campaigns on children’s for the implementation of children's rights.

• Family size should be small because Poor households tend to have more
children, and with large families there is a greater likelihood that children will
work and have lower school attendance and completion.

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• Governments need to devote resources for Schooling and to provide good
quality and relevance atmosphere with no cost to poor families.

• Base programming on children’s own perception of what constitutes safe /

harmful / age appropriate / educational labor.

• Target and focus integrated packages of basic services on urban poor families.

• Disabled children must receive priority attention due to their particular

vulnerability to exploitation in the worst forms of child labor on the streets.

• Expand education services to make them accessible to working children.

• To give priority attention to immediately eliminating the worst forms of child

labor with appropriate programs.

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References:
• www.unicef.org.com
• Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child “The State of Pakistan’s
Children 2006″ http://www.sparcpk.org/publications/sopc_2006.pdf
• IRIN Asia “Child labour still widespread in NWFP”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=26413\
• U.S Department of Labor “Pakistan”
http://www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/iclp/sweat/pakistan.htm
• YesPakistan.com staff writer “Policy considerations for ending child labor in
Pakistan” http://www.yespakistan.com/people/child_labor.asp
• http://images.google.com.pk/imgres?
imgurl=http://www.hamariweb.com/Images/Articles/Labour3%252013-
• http://www.minnpost.com/globalpost/2009/05/15/8833/hope_for_pakistans_c
hild_workers
• http://www.sparcpk.org/news_june_need.php
• Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child “The State of Pakistan’s
Children 2006″ http://www.sparcpk.org/publications/sopc_2006.pdf
• IRIN Asia “Child labour still widespread in NWFP”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=26413\
• U.S Department of Labor “Pakistan”
http://www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/iclp/sweat/pakistan.htm
• YesPakistan.com staff writer “Policy considerations for ending child labor in
Pakistan” http://www.yespakistan.com/people/child_labor.asp
• http://images.google.com.pk/imgres?
imgurl=http://www.hamariweb.com/Images/Articles/Labour3%252013-
• http://www.sparcpk.org/crs_child_labor.php
• http://www.minnpost.com/globalpost/2009/05/15/8833/hope_for_pakistans_c
hild_workers
• http://www.sparcpk.org/press_only_education.php
• http://www.sparcpk.org/news_june_need.php

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