Laws Related to Child Labour Passed in Pakistan
Early in this decade the Pakistan National Assembly enacted two labour laws meant to curb such practices.
The first, The Employment of Children Act of 1991, prohibited the use of child labour in hazardous occupation and environments.
The second, The Bonded Labour Act of 1992, abolished indentured servitude and the peshgi system.
As progressive as these laws were, the government failed to provide for their implementation and enforcement. It also neglected to inform the millions of working children and indentured servants that they were free and released from their debts. "We prefer to leave enforcement to the discretion of the police," says a Ministry of Labour official. "They understand best the needs of their community. Law is not an absolute. We must expect certain flexibility on the part of those who enforce it. Could this sometimes mean looking the other way? Absolutely."
Fact and Figures
Child labour has assumed endemic proportions in Pakistan. Statistics are unreliable, but the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) last year estimated the number of Pakistani working children to be "realistically in the region of 11-12 million." At least half these children are under the age of ten. Despite a recent series of laws prohibiting child labour and agreement servitude, children make up a quarter of the unskilled work force, and can be found in virtually every factory, every workshop, and every field. They earn on average a third of the adult wage. Certain industries, notably carpet making and brick making, cannot survive without them. One World Bank economist maintains that Pakistan's economic capability associate with the number of children in its factories. The child labour pool is all but unlimited, owing in part to a birth rate that is among the worlds highest and to an education system that can accommodate only about a third of the country's school-age children. Each year millions of children enter the labour force, where they compete with adults--often even with their parents--for what little work is available. In many regions the surplus of cheap child labour has depressed the already inadequate adult wage to the point where a parent and child together now earn less than the parent alone earned a year ago. As long as children are put to work, poverty will spread and standards of living will continue to decline.
To be sure, child labour is an institution throughout the Third World, and its incidence has been increasing in countries that are usually described as advanced. The worldwide population of children fewer than fourteen who work full-time is thought to exceed 200 million. But few countries have done less to abolish or to contain the practice than Pakistan. And fewer still have a ruling class that opposes workplace reform and human rights initiatives as vigorously. Given its relative prosperity, its constitutional prohibition against child labour, and its leaders' signatures on every UN human- and child-rights convention, Pakistan's de facto dependency on child labor is troubling and to its critics inexcusable.
"Inaction speaks louder than words," says I. A. Rehman, the director of the HRCP. "This government is in continuous violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and has consistently refused to enforce those very laws it enacted to protect its most vulnerable citizens. We have far more in the way of resources and legal remedies than China, India, and Indonesia, and we do far less for our young than they. The problem is lack of political will. The problem is greed."
The median age of children now entering the Pakistani work force is seven. Two years ago it was eight. Two years from now it may be six. In the lowest castes, children become labourers almost as soon as they can walk. Toddlers, yoked teams of three-, four-, and five-year-olds who plough, seed, and glean fields from dawn to dusk work much of the nation’s farmland. On any given morning the canal banks and irrigation ditches in rural villages are lined with urchins who stand no taller than the piles of laundry they wash for their wealthier neighbours. Even the world-class industries of Islamabad, the modern capital, are staffed in large part by children and adolescents; politicians traveling to the National Assembly can't help noticing the ragged youths entering and exiting the brick factories, steel mills, and stone-crushing plants at all hours of the day and night. These children work with a minimum of adult command. A supervisor comes by periodically to mark their progress and to give them instructions or little encouraging blows, but for the better part of the workday they are left to themselves. "Children are cheaper to run than tractors and smarter than oxen," explains one Rawalpindi landlord. He prefers field hands between seven and ten years old, "because they have the most energy, although they lack discipline."
A Pakistani government seems more interested in outfitting his army than in reforming Pakistani society; government has embarked on an ambitious military build-up that has already put at risk the region. Its first victims have been Pakistan's lower castes, the working poor who are familiar to receiving little in the way of social services and must now make do with less. In 1994 military spending was 240 percent as high as spending on health and education combined; the disparity is expected to widen in years to come. Spending on education remains among the worlds lowest. Only 37 percent of Pakistan's 25 million school-age children complete primary school--as compared with a world average of 79 percent and a South Asian average of approximately 50 percent. By the year 2000 less than a third of Pakistani children will attend school. The rest will enter the work force or become beggars.
Behind these statistics lay an unpleasant truth: despite its modern views on warfare and industrialization, Pakistan remains a feudal society, committed to maintaining traditions that over the centuries have served its upper castes well. The lords--factory owners, exporters, and financiers--reflexively oppose any reforms that might weaken their authority, lower their profit margins, or enfranchise the workers. "There is room for improvement in any society," the industrialist Imram Malik says. "But we feel that the present situation is acceptable the way it is. The National Assembly must not rush through reforms without first evaluating their impact on productivity and sales. Our position is that the government must avoid so-called humanitarian measures that harm our competitive advantages." On those rare occasions when a reform does squeak through, the backlash is fierce. For example, when the legislature last year approved a modest tax on bricks to fund an education program, brick-kiln owners staged a ten-day nationwide protest and threatened to suspend production, crippling construction, until the tax was repealed. Trade associations have used similar strong-arm tactics to fight minimum-wage legislation, occupational-safety regulations, and trade-union activity.
The Charter of Freedom:
With a government that is at best hesitant about social issues and an industrial sector resistant to workplace reform, the task of abolishing child labour has fallen to the human-rights community. But in a country where corruption is pervasive and education inadequate, social activists are everyone's natural enemy. The ruling class despises them for assaulting its profitable traditions. The lower castes suspect them of ulterior motives. (Labourers are forever asking activists, "Why would an educated man trouble himself with the poor?") Consequently, activists are frequent targets of slander, police harassment, and lawsuits. They are beaten just as frequently and on occasion they are killed.
Yet they persist, and sometimes they prevail. If the number of people they have helped judges human-rights organizations, the Bonded Labour Liberation Front is probably the most successful in Pakistan. Since its founding, in 1988, the BLLF has led the fight against bonded and child labour, liberating 30,000 adults and children--frequently entire families--from brick kilns, carpet factories, and farms, and placing 11,000 children in its own primary school system (its motto: "Struggle against slavery through education"). At the same time, it has won 25,000 high-court cases against abusive and unscrupulous employers, and helped to push the recent labour legislation through the National Assembly.
The state has done nothing to enforce the anti-slavery laws or even to inform the public that child and bonded labour have been outlawed. It's evident that if the enslaved workers are to be delivered from bondage, private citizens will have to do the delivering. That is, we will have to proclaim the end of slavery, educate workers, monitor employer compliance, and take legal action when necessary, because the state lacks the will and resources to do so.
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