![[Pakistan] Pir Wadhai, child sexual abuse, These boys have suffered from physical, emotional and sexual abuse.](https://assets.thenewhumanitarian.org/s3fs-public/styles/responsive_large_2x/public/images/2208.jpg.webp?itok=GZ_4bSet "ILO launches four-year programme to eliminate child labour")
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) on Wednesday formally launched a four-year programme intended to support an ongoing programme being conducted by the government to help eliminate child labour in Pakistan.
"We are primarily providing technical support in this campaign against child labour, because, like poverty, it has to be phased out step by step," Johannes Lokollo, the ILO country representative, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad.
ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has been operational in Pakistan since 1994, with a steering committee headed by the labour ministry overseeing it.
Pakistan ratified the ILO’s Convention 182, which focuses on the worst forms of child labour, in 2001 and sought ILO-IPEC assistance to develop a "time-bound" programme - a set of tightly integrated and coordinated development policies aimed at eliminating child labour within a specific time-frame.
ILO-IPEC, in agreement with the government, had selected deep-sea fishing, the glass-bangle industry, tanneries, coal mining, the surgical instrument manufacturing industry and rag picking as the sectors in which child labourers were exposed to the most hazardous conditions, Lokollo said. "We hope to be able to withdraw a large amount of children from these sectors and enrol them in educational institutions," he added.
Child labour was a universal obstacle to primary education, and the Pakistan government was fully committed to implementing convention 182, Education Minister Zobaida Jalal said at the launch of the ILO programme.
"According to a survey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics in 1996, there were 40 million children aged five to 14 years in Pakistan. Out of these, 3.3 million were reported to be working," she said, adding that the Pakistan government had committed itself to overhauling the figures and ensuring that more children received easier access to education so that an ambitious programme - called Education For All (EFA) 2015 - could meet its objectives.
EFA 2015 is intended to reach disadvantaged populations in rural and urban areas with a special emphasis on girls and women, to promote community participation at the grass-roots level and to improve the quality and relevance of basic education.
"The priorities are primary education, adult literacy and early childhood education," Jalal told a meeting at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's Paris headquarters in October, 2001.
Abdul Sattar Laleka, the labour minister, said it was "disturbing" that such a large proportion of children was engaged in labour. "There is no unique solution or short cut to solving this problem," he said, adding that his government saw the elimination of child labour as a "high-priority" issue.
"It is important that resources and political will be brought together to bring about meaningful change," Nancy Powell, the US ambassador to Pakistan and the keynote speaker, stressed, as she announced a grant of US $4 million to the ILO-IPEC technical assistance project on behalf of the US labour department.
Under the programme, nearly 12,000 children would be withdrawn from their hazardous occupations and enrolled in schools, she added.
"The US department of labour believes that 51 percent of Pakistani children have never been to school," she stated, noting that, since 1997, previous projects aimed at helping the number of children employed in hazardous industries had received $12 million from the labour department.
The current programme was intended to run for four years, Lokollo said. "Within these four years, we will expand our focus to cover other industries as well, where children are employed in dangerous conditions. And then, hopefully, once these four years are up, we might expand this programme to run for another four years," he added.
"We are primarily providing technical support in this campaign against child labour, because, like poverty, it has to be phased out step by step," Johannes Lokollo, the ILO country representative, told IRIN in the capital, Islamabad.
ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has been operational in Pakistan since 1994, with a steering committee headed by the labour ministry overseeing it.
Pakistan ratified the ILO’s Convention 182, which focuses on the worst forms of child labour, in 2001 and sought ILO-IPEC assistance to develop a "time-bound" programme - a set of tightly integrated and coordinated development policies aimed at eliminating child labour within a specific time-frame.
ILO-IPEC, in agreement with the government, had selected deep-sea fishing, the glass-bangle industry, tanneries, coal mining, the surgical instrument manufacturing industry and rag picking as the sectors in which child labourers were exposed to the most hazardous conditions, Lokollo said. "We hope to be able to withdraw a large amount of children from these sectors and enrol them in educational institutions," he added.
Child labour was a universal obstacle to primary education, and the Pakistan government was fully committed to implementing convention 182, Education Minister Zobaida Jalal said at the launch of the ILO programme.
"According to a survey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics in 1996, there were 40 million children aged five to 14 years in Pakistan. Out of these, 3.3 million were reported to be working," she said, adding that the Pakistan government had committed itself to overhauling the figures and ensuring that more children received easier access to education so that an ambitious programme - called Education For All (EFA) 2015 - could meet its objectives.
EFA 2015 is intended to reach disadvantaged populations in rural and urban areas with a special emphasis on girls and women, to promote community participation at the grass-roots level and to improve the quality and relevance of basic education.
"The priorities are primary education, adult literacy and early childhood education," Jalal told a meeting at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's Paris headquarters in October, 2001.
Abdul Sattar Laleka, the labour minister, said it was "disturbing" that such a large proportion of children was engaged in labour. "There is no unique solution or short cut to solving this problem," he said, adding that his government saw the elimination of child labour as a "high-priority" issue.
"It is important that resources and political will be brought together to bring about meaningful change," Nancy Powell, the US ambassador to Pakistan and the keynote speaker, stressed, as she announced a grant of US $4 million to the ILO-IPEC technical assistance project on behalf of the US labour department.
Under the programme, nearly 12,000 children would be withdrawn from their hazardous occupations and enrolled in schools, she added.
"The US department of labour believes that 51 percent of Pakistani children have never been to school," she stated, noting that, since 1997, previous projects aimed at helping the number of children employed in hazardous industries had received $12 million from the labour department.
The current programme was intended to run for four years, Lokollo said. "Within these four years, we will expand our focus to cover other industries as well, where children are employed in dangerous conditions. And then, hopefully, once these four years are up, we might expand this programme to run for another four years," he added.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
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