Pakistan has 7 million child labourers: Paper

[Neo]

Pakistan has 7 million child labourers: Paper ​

By ANI
Saturday September 8, 2007

Islamabad, Sep 8 (ANI): Pakistan still has seven million child labourers, and around 24,400 juveniles have died as a result of crime and other forms of violence since 2003.

According to Population Welfare Ministry document, obtained by The Nation, the number of street children in Pakistan has reached 35,000.

Since 2003, almost 2,207 offspring under 18 have committed suicide and 416 children have died in traffic accidents, the paper reported.

A total 24,407 children have died as a result of a crime and other forms of violence, in 2003, 3,859 kids became victim of violence, in the year 2004, 4,181 children, in 2005 the figures touched to 4,763 while during 2006, 4,120 children fell prey to various types of criminal activities.

As many as 4, 393 children were murdered during the period under review and 384 children died owing to police torture. The number of offspring raped and died afterwards recorded at 2,098 and 1,828 children fell prey of sodomy during the aforementioned period.

2,310 children died due to torture and 6,870 kids were found missing. The number of children kidnapped and then killed recorded at 6,298 and 216 children fell victim to social evil of karo kari from 2003 to 2006. (ANI)

Pakistan has 7 million child labourers: Paper - Yahoo! India News

 

[EagleEyes]

What can be the real solution to this problem? Induct them in the Army. They have the potential to be lions.

 

[solid snake]

My US History textbook says it's a normal phenomenon for countries that are newly industrializing. It happened here in the US too during the 1800s.

 

[EagleEyes]

WHAT ARE SOME SOLUTIONS TO CHILD LABOR?
Not necessarily in this order:

Increased family incomes
Education — that helps children learn skills that will help them earn a living
Social services — that help children and families survive crises, such as disease, or loss of home and shelter
Family control of fertility — so that families are not burdened by children
The ILO’s International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC) has explored many programs to help child laborers. See IPEC documents on the International Labour Organization - Home site.

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child calls for children to participate in important decisions that will affect their lives.

Some educators and social scientists believe that one of the most important ways to help child workers is to ask their opinions, and involve them in constructing "solutions" to their own problems. Strong advocates of this approach are Boyden, Myers and Ling; Concerned for Working Children in Karnataka, India; many children’s "unions" and "movements," and the Save the Children family of non-governmental organizations.

More information about the need for families to have affordable access to methods to control their fertility can be found in many analyses of the role of the "demographic transition" in economic development. See Rodolfo Bulatao, The Value of Family Planning Programs in Developing Countries ( Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1998), RAND | Monograph/Reports | The Value of Family Planning Programs in Developing Countries

Read More on this page: WHAT IS "CHILD LABOR"

 

[Neo]

What can be the real solution to this problem? Induct them in the Army. They have the potential to be lions.

Free and easy access to education and some level of social support for their parents to encourage them to keep their children at school instead of sending to factories. Child labor is a direct result of poverty, we need to kill poverty if we want to help our children.

 

[solid snake]

I think we can learn from the histories of other countries that are now prosperous and have strict child labor laws.

Child Labor in U.S. History

Forms of child labor, including indentured servitude and child slavery, have existed throughout American history. As industrialization moved workers from farms and home workshops into urban areas and factory work, children were often preferred, because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likely to strike. Growing opposition to child labor in the North caused many factories to move to the South. By 1900, states varied considerably in whether they had child labor standards and in their content and degree of enforcement. By then, American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, bootblacks, and peddlers.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the numbers of child laborers in the U.S. peaked. Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor standards in general began improving, increasing the political power of working people and other social reformers to demand legislation regulating child labor. Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined, and common initiatives were conducted by organizations led by working women and middle class consumers, such as state Consumers’ Leagues and Working Women’s Societies. These organizations generated the National Consumers’ League in 1899 and the National Child Labor Committee in 1904, which shared goals of challenging child labor, including through anti-sweatshop campaigns and labeling programs. The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set federal standards for child labor.

source: Child Labor in U.S. History - The Child Labor Education Project

Notice how "free, compulsory education" was one of the tools used to end child labor in the US.

 

[sigatoka]

Free and easy access to education and some level of social support for their parents to encourage them to keep their children at school instead of sending to factories. Child labor is a direct result of poverty, we need to kill poverty if we want to help our children.

Due to the social system in Pakistan (where children are expected to look after parents in old age), parent should be more than willing to send their children to school if it meant that the schooling would boost children's incomes sufficient to offset the initial cost of sending them to school, more so than they should be in a Western nation. The problem, if any is the fact that either schooling is not boosting future incomes sufficiently to induce parents to send their children to school or either that the parents face liquidity constraints in that they can not borrow at reasonable rates of interest to finance their children's education (against the higher future income of their children). The solution then is to examine the education system in Pakistan to investigate either why it is not boosting future incomes sufficiently or the government intervening the credit market and loaning funds to parents that only have to be paid when the children do start working. Any other "solution" is actually worse than the existing problem. After all, if "education" can not raise a person's future income it is not worth acquiring.

 

[Bull]

A latest report has shown that the middle class are the worst violators of children, employing them ona wide variety of jobs.

 

[Introvert]

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[Introvert]

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[su-47]

Child labour is a problem that affects all developing nations. It affected europe when they were developing. now that they have developed into industrial giants and have no child labour, they turn up their noses at developing nations that use child labour. talk about hypocrisy!

Child labour is a problem that can be eradicated only when poverty is eradicated.

 

[sigatoka]

Child labour is a problem that affects all developing nations. It affected europe when they were developing. now that they have developed into industrial giants and have no child labour, they turn up their noses at developing nations that use child labour. talk about hypocrisy!

Child labour is a problem that can be eradicated only when poverty is eradicated.

I found a good article on child labour and it arising due to credit constraints in the market for loans for education. It is a pdf article, im wondering if there is any way to post that here?

The article is "Ranjan, P. (1999). “An economic analysis of child labor”, Economics Letters, vol. 64 (1), pp. 99–105."

It can be found on google scholar, but it requires subscription to the journal.

 

[Bull]

I found a good article on child labour and it arising due to credit constraints in the market for loans for education. It is a pdf article, im wondering if there is any way to post that here?

The article is "Ranjan, P. (1999). “An economic analysis of child labor”, Economics Letters, vol. 64 (1), pp. 99–105."

It can be found on google scholar, but it requires subscription to the journal.

thanks anyways for the link, will try to access it in the weekend. Most of the recent naobel lauretes where guys who had worked on macro economics like Amartya sen and the Bangaldeshi guy.