Focus on child labour

Covered in engine oil and paint, Mohammad Shahbaz, 13, has been toiling at a car workshop in Rawalpindi in Pakistan's central Punjab Province for the past year. Stripping and painting cars, he works six days a week, 10 hours a day and gets paid a meagre 20 rupees (10 US cents) daily. "My father died, and my mother said I had to work. The money I earn pays for my evening meal," he told IRIN. The boy had received no training for the job and learnt by watching others. Shahbaz spends hours every day sanding and spraying without even basic safety equipment, and is often overcome by paint fumes. "It is very hard work and takes time," he stressed. "I don't want to be a burden on my mother," he said, adding that his four brothers and two sisters were all working. He and his brothers live together in one room, which they rent for 1,000 rupees (US $16) per month, because their mother cannot support them. "There is no water or bathroom, but we manage, and often wash in the local river," he said. The teenager has never been to school, because his family could not afford to send him. But Shahbaz, who entered the world of work at a very early age, said he often thought of the days when he would play with his friends. His ambition in life now was to work hard, so that he could support himself and his family and eventually open his own workshop in Rawalpindi, some 30 km from the capital, Islamabad. Shahbaz is just one of some 300 boys working in 100 workshops in the Gawalmandi area of the city, where employers say it has been a long-running tradition to take on children. "What we pay them is a small amount, but this is training for them, and it is for their benefit too," Mohammad Siddiq, the owner of a car workshop in Gawalmandi, told IRIN. Asked why he employed children, he replied: "I was employed as a child. They are much cheaper and harder working than adults." The boys usually start off as tea boys, while they observe and learn the trade. "I would have to pay an adult 100 rupees (US $1.60) per day," Siddiq explained. In a country where 30 percent of the population live in poverty and unemployment if rife, it is no wonder that children are opting to work rather than attend school. Of a growing population of 140 million people, about 70 million are under the age of 18. The number of school-age children is about 46 million. "Out of this 46 million, 50 percent are not attending school. This means they are all potential child workers, and I believe the numbers are increasing," the head of the Pakistani NGO, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of a Child, Anees Jilani, told IRIN in Islamabad. Although research to collect statistics has been carried out, Jilani said no one really knew the exact number of child labourers in Pakistan. In 1996, the government carried out a survey on child labour, interviewing children aged between five and 14, and concluded that there were 3.3 million youngsters in the workforce, of whom 69 percent were in the agricultural sector. "I, along with many others, have a problem with this survey, as this is not a realistic figure. There are plenty more working in the informal work sector, in homes and car workshops etcetera," Jilani maintained. The increasing problem of poverty in Pakistan has pushed youngsters into the worst forms of labour - child prostitution, making fireworks and explosives, and carpet weaving. The government says it has taken concrete steps to curtail the problem of child workers in the football-stitching industry in the city of Sialkot in Punjab Province. A scheme set up in 1998, assisted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), proved successful in eradicating child labour in the football industry through the establishment of education, rehabilitation and formal stitching centres employing adults only. Some 7,000 children were said to have been working at home for hours on end stitching footballs, and although they were not generally employed in hazardous conditions, they were missing out on their crucial years of education. This was one of a few measures adopted by the government to curb the problem. Islamabad has ratified seven out of the eight ILO conventions, including Convention 182, signed in 2001 under the government of Pervez Musharraf, on the worst forms of child labour. A law prohibiting the employment of children under the age of 14 in any factory, mine or in hazardous conditions was also implemented, but NGOs say that there are still children working in them. Subsequently, in January 2002, a proposal from the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPECL), an advocacy group, was presented to Pakistani officials and employers in an effort to end child labour within the next 10 years. An ambitious programme to reduce poverty in the country from 32 percent to 15 percent, within the same time frame, is also being implemented. Despite these efforts, however, Jilani said not enough was being done to tackle the problem country-wide and that the situation in Sialkot could easily be reversed in years to come. "Even though a huge effort has been made and a large amount of money has been spent, no miracles have taken place in Sialkot. More importantly, once donor assistance is withdrawn, you will see the situation going back to the old days and children returning to the factories," he warned. Jilani said the problem of children working in the informal sector was far greater, as there were no laws to monitor this. Given the country's economic circumstances, the problem of child labour would persist, he said. At present, legislation in the Islamic country permits children to be employed in non-strenuous domestic work. But they are often exploited. "The bulk of children are working in the informal sector, and any attempts to tackle the problem need to start at the informal sector," he asserted. One of the best ways to monitor the unregulated sector, according to Jilani, is to have child labour inspectors. "It's not really a lack of resources, it doesn't cost that much, say 5,000 rupees (US $80) per month to hire an inspector. The moment the inspector starts work, he or she will start earning revenue by levying penalties anywhere from five to 10 times more than what he/she is paid," he explained. But government officials say it would be impossible to monitor the unregulated sector, and has offered its own solution, saying that families themselves should be mobilised to regulate the informal sector themselves. "We need family empowerment and poverty eradication," the central labour adviser at the Ministry of Labour and Manpower, Shabeel Jamal, told IRIN. Implementing a law for the informal work sector would not be the solution, as it would be very difficult to reach each and every household, especially in villages, according to Jamal. "It is simply not practical or possible," he stressed. Unless there is an affluent society, you cannot eradicate child labour, he said. "The problem of child labour in this country has been blown out of proportion by the media and NGOs who are using it for their own benefit. The magnitude of the problem in the formal sector is now low," he maintained, referring to Sialkot, where, he said, all children formerly engaged in stitching footballs were now attending school. Jamal said child labour was bound to continue in a country where poverty exists and people have limited access to education. The official said the problem was made worse by employers themselves, who prefer children to adults because they are cheap labour. "What we must do is ensure that those children who have no choice but to work have a safe environment and acceptable conditions to work in." The ministry is currently in the process of identifying children who work in hazardous conditions by carrying out an updated survey, to be completed within the year 2002. Although Jilani admits that many children have no option but to work in the poverty-ridden country, he made the point that people would remain poor if they were not educated. "You are basically supporting that circle of poverty, if you allow them to continue working," he stressed, adding that the state should intervene and offer more opportunities for education. "I think this is how the problem was solved in the West, and I think this is the only way it can be solved in Pakistan. You can only abolish child labour by making education compulsory," he maintained. A lawyer by trade, Jilani said he thought the problem of child labour could be resolved in Pakistan, but that there was not enough interest on the part of the politicians in this subject. "You will see this problem solved in our lifetime in India. This is despite the fact that India's population is 10 times more than ours," he stated. One reason Jilani's prediction has a chance of coming true is because the literacy rate in India stands at 65 percent, as opposed to 35 percent in Pakistan, a country where the number of children in the workforce is still increasing instead of stabilising or decreasing. "There is generally apathy and inefficiency in this country, which extends to child labour," he stressed. However, he commended the efforts made under the present leadership of President Pervez Musharraf, such as the signing of Convention 182 and a plan of action to eliminate child labour in the country. But Jilani argued that the plans were yet to be implemented. Despite these initiatives and the need for youngsters to work in order to stay alive in this developing country, Jilani was pessimistic about the long-term prospects of poor children. "The future of children in Pakistan is not very bright. Something drastic needs to be done, otherwise it's going to worsen instead of improve," he maintained.