Over 1.6 mn kids engaged in child labour in Pak’s Sindh

Over 1.6 million children are engaged in child labour in Pakistan's Sindh province, a senior official said on Sunday, citing a recent survey.

Child labour remains a major menace in the country despite efforts by the government to update and institute laws to protect children aged between 5 and 17, said Sindh Director General of Labour Syed Muhammad Murtaza Ali Shah.

A survey conducted by his department in July-August with the technical assistance of UNICEF and the Bureau of Statistics revealed that over 1.6 million (10.3 per cent of children aged 5–17) were engaged in child labour in the province.

“The other provinces are also now carrying out fresh surveys on child labour but in Sindh we found that as many as 800,000 children (50.4 per cent of those aged 10–17) are working in hazardous and exploitative conditions, which include excessive hours, extreme weather, and unsafe tools in agriculture and industrial sectors,” Shah said.

The survey also showed that only 40.6 per cent of working children attend school, compared to 70.5 per cent of non-working children. The Qambar Shahdadkot district had the highest prevalence of child labour of 30.8 per cent, followed by Tharparkar at 29 per cent, Tando Muhammad Khan at 20.3 per cent, and Shikarpur at 20.2 per cent.