Child Labor
(Abdul Moiz Siddiqui, Karachi)
Child labor is an important and
a serious global issue through which all and sundry countries of the world are
directly or indirectly affected, but,it is very common in Latin America,Africa
and Asia.According to some, in several Asian countries' 1/10 manpower consists
of child labor.in India the number of children between the ages of 10-14 has
crossed above 44 million,in Pakistan this number is from 8 to 10 million,in
Bangladesh 8-12 million,in Brazil 7 million,whereas their number is 12 million
in Nigeria.
In Pakistan children aged 5-14 are above 40 million.During the last year, the
federal Bureau of statistics released the results of its survey funded by ILO's
IPEC (International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor).The findings were
that 3.8 million children age group of 5-14 years are working in Pakistan out of
total 40 million children in this age group; fifty percent of these economically
active children are in age of 5 to 9years.Even out of these 3.8 millions
economically active children,2.7 million were claimed to be working in the
agriculture sector. Two million and four hundred thousand (73%) of them were
said to be boys.