Our society has suddenly discovered Tayyaba, a ten year old girl, who was brutally tortured by none other than the wife of Additional Sessions & District Judge of Islamabad, God knows how many times and for what. The “what” part is easier to answer: Tayyaba is poor and it is the right of everybody who is anybody to make suffer souls like her, and of course nothing happens to the tormentors.
Is it the first time that such an incident has taken place in Pakistan? Thousands of child domestic workers are beaten each day in our households, and millions of children work while we hardly spend a second thinking about them. Many of them have been tortured to death by their employers but not a single one of them has ever been prosecuted, what to talk of punished for the offense.
Tayyabas of Pakistan deserve better. Millions of households all over the country are employing under-18 children. Ain’t they all guilty of the same crime, although many continue to justify it on grounds of helping the poor child? Child labor is generally legally permissible in the country, due to big loopholes in the relevant legislations. Employment of all children in the age group 14 to 18 years is allowed in all sectors whether formal or informal. There are few areas in the formal sector that prohibit child labor under 14 years, and it is legally allowable in a few sectors with certain restrictions. And then comes the big sectors, like domestic child labor, agricultural labor, and self-employed children, which remain totally unregulated.
The media has thankfully picked on the Tayyaba case as it has done with similar cases in the past, and hopefully will stick to the issue till something positive comes out of this tragedy. A section of the civil society has also been galvanized. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has taken notice of the matter. One only hopes that some good will come out of Tayyaba’s afflictions.
It has repeatedly been pointed out to both the federal and provincial governments that the scope of child labor laws needs to be urgently broadened, and the big gaps in them plugged. All kinds of projects dealing with domestic child labor have been launched; fancy reports based on surveys prepared; and they all are now gathering dust. Child laborers of this country do not need more projects. What we desire and need is action on the part of the Government of Pakistan, and the Provincial Governments.
Ideally, Pakistan should have a law governing not just domestic child labor but domestic labor in general. This is the most neglected field as labor employed in people’s households are secluded and thus do not exist as a group are difficult to reach and to be counted. They do domestic chores including cooking, caring for children and running errands at meager salaries and work on totally unregulated hours with no weekly days off. Quite a few of them, particularly the children, live in deplorable conditions. This is the invisible workforce of Pakistan, and it is high time that a national law and if the political will is missing, then at least provincial laws wherever there is interest, should be enacted within this year.
Pakistan’s Constitution only prohibits child labor below the age of 14 years in factories, mines, or hazardous employment. The latter term remains undefined but one can argue that child domestic work falls into this category. Additionally, the Factories Act 1934 prohibits under-14 employment in factories; the Mines Act 1923 in mines; and the Shops & Establishments Ordinance 1969 in offices and restaurants.
The Employment of Children Act 1991 has a schedule with two parts that lists 38 sectors where employment of under-14 is prohibited. Domestic child labor can easily be added by the Federal and Provincial Governments to this Schedule to make it outlawed. The contravention of this ban in the 1991 Act is punishable with imprisonment extending up to one year, or with fine going up to Rs 20,000, or with both.
It is about time that all the concerned authorities, and the relevant stakeholders, including the employers, parents, media and even the children, realize that `A Child Employed is a Future Destroyed.’ Poverty may be a major cause of child labor but poverty is also caused by child labor. A child who fails to go to school will end up working in menial jobs without learning any major skills all his life and will consequently remain poor. The vicious cycle of poverty will thus continue to be perpetrated. State intervention is required to break this cycle, and the sooner we do it, the more Tayyabas we are able to save.
The Last Stop 