Recent reports about Child labor situation in Pakistan appearing in the national and international media has drawn a lot of attention about this issue. Some industries were specifically targeted because of the use of child labor in products exported from Pakistan. Though these reports have been challenged by the manufacturers and the Government alike, one cannot deny the fact that Child labor does exist in Pakistan on a large scale and that children are exploited and oppressed in many ways especially through the practice of bonded labor. Bonded labor is very much along the lines of slave labor and is prevalent in many work places.
The constitution of Pakistan prohibits employment of children under the age of fourteen in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment. Pakistan has also ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child and is a signatory to the ILO Conventions on the employment of children. However, the prohibition does not apply to labor by children in an establishment where such processes are carried out in the family, farm and many formal and informal sectors. Until now no extensive research has ever been carried out at the official level to give a correct estimate of the number of children, the nature of work they are involved in, their socio-economic background, or the different form of exploitations suffered by them. This has resulted in the total absence of short term and long term strategies to eliminate child labor.
Children in Pakistan work in factories, tanneries, at loom making carpets, stitching foot balls, and in restaurants. They also work as domestic servants, street vendors, rag pickers, beggars and do many other works at their homes. In this paper I will pursue the issue of-child labor particularly in tanneries and carpet industries. The human Rights Commission of Pakistan conducted a survey in this regard. My deliberations and reflections in this paper are based on its report of 1995.
The tanneries in Kasur: This area falls under the diocese of Raiwind, where there is a concentrated population of Christians, who are extremely poor, illiterate, and work as unskilled day laborers. There are about 275 tanneries in Kasur- 80 large units and the rest small, some are not even registered. There is an extreme form of environmental pollution. Liquid waste from the tanneries containing poisonous chemicals flows down open drains along both sides of the street. Fumes and the odor of chemicals add to the stink of animal hides processed in the tanneries. This was a residential area into which the tanneries have moved.There are homes all around the area. It is difficult to imagine how the residents survive the polluted environment.
Unfortunately this is one industry that utilizes child labor extensively, Five to fifteen children work in each small tannery. Even children as young as five years old work in the most atrocious working conditions. They basically work in washing, drying and spray painting of the leather, inhaling not only the fumes from the chemicals used in the processing but also the paint spray. They spend hours doing monotonous chores such as stamping the finished pieces of leather in small, poorly ventilated rooms.
Labor in the tanneries is almost entirely on contract. Wages paid to children range between $ 8 to 12 per month. In some cases daily wages are as low as 10 cents per day. Children work for about ten hours a day. They usually get half an hour to eat lunch, which they bring from home.
The majority of the workforce in the tanneries including children are Christian. Most of them have never been to school and expect no better prospects than continuing to work in tanneries or finding other labor on daily wages. The fathers of these children have irregular jobs, and their mothers work as domestic servants. Most of these children work unwillingly and under parental pressure and if have the option would like to go to school.
The child labor in the tanneries is not only illegal, it is extremely detrimental to their health anddevelopment. The owners however believe that education can not help to eliminate this practice, as extreme poverty leaves the parents with no option but to send their children to work. The industry prefers to employ them because child labor is cheap and submissive, and does not pose any threat to the owners. Therefore they have no interest to eliminate this practice.. However there is a center for children working in the tanneries started by a non-government organization in collaboration with ILO, which provides educational facilities and recreation for working children. The owners cooperate with such organizations and have agreed to free children an hour early to attend these programs that provide entertainment and release from stress.
Politician’s attitude: Two influential and prominent politicians from both major political parties belong to this constituency. Neither of them have ever raised the issue of child labor or conditions under which the tannery labor works. One reason for this could be that the affected population is largely Christian,and the prevalent system of separate electorate makes them irrelevant for these politicians as they do not need their votes to attain position of power and authority.
The carpet Industry: Behind the intricacies of a beautiful carpet lies a hard and exploited labor of children. In Pakistan these carpets are knitted in abundance. Here I would like to share some facts about the child’s working condition and exploitation done in this industry with reference to Thar, which is a backward and neglected area in Sindh province of Pakistan. The water obtained from wells has been declared unfit for human consumption by UNICEF. Tuberculosis, and Malaria is rampant. A spell of drought occurs every 4 to 6 years, and may stretch for as long as 2 years. During this spell, many People are forced to take loans from traditional money lenders at very high rates. The loan procured by the child’s father shackles him to the loom.
The child in this industry works from daylight to sunset and has no time to play. Prior to 1991 the children worked in the factory under harsh and arrogant management in a master slave relationship. At times they would work till past midnight behind locked doors. And when the child workers were defiant, they were beaten up. Now the looms are shifted from the factories deep into the villages. Here the middleman, commissioned by the owner sets up cottage industries, fitting some two to four looms in a room.
The working conditions in the villages are somewhat less harsh in that the children can return home at night, but the work hours are long. The child here works from 7 am to 7 pm, or till he completes weaving three inches of the carpet. A child who fails to turn up for work is summoned, and unless ill, he is under great pressure both from his family and from the owner to be at work. A child who works only half a day is not entitled to any pay at all. There is a half hour break for lunch which he must eat sitting by the loom.. The children get very exhausted. When one child was asked if he had time to play after work at 7 pm, he said, If you ask me to stop work now, I will fall asleep”. Some children begin work at the loom at age five or six. According to a study conducted by Save the Children Fund ( 1991-94) of the 3000 carpet workers, 2000 were below the age of 14. The children are paid $ 25 – 30 a month. The wages have improved after the worker’s strike in 1991. Although no scientific study has been conducted of health hazards that the carpet children are exposed to, the medical practitioners observed that these children tend to suffer from respiratory diseases, such as bronchial asthma,due to lack of proper ventilation and inhalation of fine wool fibre. It is suspected that the growth of the child worker gets affected by his sitting cramped for long hours at a stretch. The children also suffer from frequent finger cuts and are afflicted by short sightedness after a few years. In case of illness, the employer does not provide medical aid.
Bondage: Taking loans is an established practice in Thar. A significant segment of the population is heavily in debt. The frequencies of draught brings hardship and makes families vulnerable, The owners are fully aware of this vulnerability, and there fore use it to exploit the poor people. The families at times tend to spend beyond their means at birth, marriage ceremonies and at funerals. Savings is not possible due to extreme poverty, and therefore no funds to fall back upon in times of need. This is the time when owners extend loans, which of course are no risk to them, but in return they gain bonded / slave labor for life.
According to the Save the Children’s Fund 90 per cent of the children surveyed were in bondage, with their families having borrowed a sum ranging from $ 150 -1500.This indebtedness puts the head of the family in a weak bargaining position. He can be easily exploited. And the burden of the debt falls on the child worker who must work for up to 12 hours on meager wages for seven days of the week. Some children find that they can not take so much pressure and a few cases of committing suicides have been reported. Most parents find it difficult to return the loan. This means that the child continues to work for years in bondage.
Due to lack of a dual system of accounting, the owners tend to cheat the family. And even when the loan is returned the owner picks fault in the finished carpet and charge the master artisan worker a sum of money for the real or imagined defect, thus prolonging the bondage. The owners always establish alliance with the power holders so that they can better exercise an undue hold over the workers. When a family is unable to return the loan demanded by the owner, the owner seizes whatever valuable possessions it has, such as cattle-heads.
Similar kind of bondage exists in the brick kiln industry and domestic work, where parents are forced to take loans to meet crisis in the family. When it becomes absolutely impossible for them to return the loan, parent bond their children to work for the master until the loan is returned.. In Pakistan, one third of all going school children ( 5-15) are working. This makes a total of about 10 million children both boys and girls. They also make up one third of total labor force. Girls suffer more than the boys because they have to do work at their own homes as well. Working children are exposed to verbal and physical abuse and frequently sexual abuse.
It is true that child labor cannot be studied in isolation, and has to be seen as an issue in the context of the social, economic and political conditions prevalent in the country. These conditions, however must not dilute our commitment to act in the best interest of the children. All children should be treated as equal human beings. Sending young children to work at the expense of their education and development is exploitation of children. Employers do it all the time because they want cheap and passive labor. Parents do it either because they are genuinely in need of money or because in most cases , fathers take it easy at the expense of their children. The society accepts child labor as a norm. The government is at fault for not building enough schools, not getting good teachers and not making primary education interesting and practical.
Child is a gift of God. To ensure its health and welbeing is our sacred responsibility.To diminish this life or to restrict child’s freedom and equality in any form is to commit sin against the child and God. The question which we need to ask is what must be our response of faith in this alarming situation.
The solution for me lies in the education of liberation. Education is never neutral. It either perpetuates the present social system or brings about transformarion. It believes in the power of the oppressed. Working children should have non-formal education that prepares them to be conscious and responsible people of God. Keeping in mind the extreme poverty and ineffective educational system that prevails, we can not remove all children from labor force. What needs to be done at this point is to closely monitor their working conditions, conscientizing them to be be active participants in the revolutionary process with an increasingly critical awareness of their role as subjects of the transformation. Their working hours should be reduced and wages improved and gradually we should take them out from dangerous work.
I strongly believe that in the long run only education which is liberative and aims at conscientization and working with the oppressed, not as masters but comrades, will alleviate all kinds of poverty and oppression.
The Women Development and Service Program of Raiwind diocese is committed to working with young girls who work as domestics in the rural and slum areas where they are constantly harassed and looked down upon with contempt. We hold a number of self-enhancement workshops every year for young girls( ages 10 – 18) which give them an opportunity to name their world of oppression in relation to their experiences at home, work place and society at large. These girls freely speak about their own work. At first some of them are shy but then they describe the kind of menial work they do at other people’s homes. One girl described how she did all kinds of domestic work, then came home and took care of her brother’s children and also did a lot of work at home. Participants are usually eager to talk about their work when they are encouraged to do so. These workshops conscientize these girls to their realities, teach self-determination and challenge them to take affirmative actions to transform their life and the life of the total community. They also receive literacy and vocational training that helps them to have a positive image about themselves and live with dignity. The WDSP also aims at mobilizing the whole community to participate in their children’s development programs. The diocese gives small loans to those young boys and girls who are school drop outs and wish to start small business to support and sustain their family life.
Special attention is also being paid to literacy and income generating projects for children working on brick kilns. This program helps children to acquire education that is useful and helps them not only to earn better wages, but also to work and live with dignity.
There is so much to be done. As children of God each one of us has a calling to be God’s partner in bringing justice, equality and freedom to all God’s people and the whole creation. Our small actions are like ripples that begin the revolutionary movement.. Let the ripple start with us where ever we are and let these ripples do their part. Trusting the process we continue to perform our responsibility.
(This paper was presented before the Working Group on “Practicle Theology”. This group was formed for the 10th Institute meeting of The Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies held in 1997. The Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies is an affiliate of the World Methodist Council. Its mission is to foster and support disciplined theological study among professional scholars and scholarly ministers and laypersons within the Methodist and Wesleyan traditions around the globe.)