Child Labour - Facts and Fiction

Child labour exists throughout the third world including Pakistan. For some unknown reason, the Western Press has chosen to single out Pakistan to decry the system. The May 1997 issue of the Readers’ Digest carried a particularly vicious article entitled `No Life for a Child’ giving harrowing tales of beatings and other forms of coercion to make little children in Pakistan to work in factories. Advantage is taken of the fact that there has been no census in the country for two decades to bloat the figures of child labour. One estimate going the rounds is 15 million. But the more popular figure is 8 million which both UNICEF and SAARC have adopted. ILO produced a figure of 6.3 million till, in 1996 it sponsored a survey which turned up the figure of 3.3 million. In a country with a population of 132 million, every man, woman and child of which is under a debt burden of about Rs 13,021 per annum the figure of 3.3 million labouring children should not take anyone by surprise. Not that this is any justification for child labour.