Child Labor in Pakistan

Poverty in Pakistan

Some more Causes of Poverty

Large Scale Import

The import of Pakistan is greater than export. Big revenue is consumed in importing good every year, even raw material has to import for industry. If we decrease import and establish own supply chains from our country natural resources the people will have better opportunities to earn.

Law and Order

There are lot of problems regarding law and order. Terrorist attacks create uncertainty in stock markets and people earning from stock are getting loss due to which the whole country faces uncertain increase in commodity prices.

Fluctuated Foreign investment

Foreign investor comes to local markets. They invest millions of dollars in stock markets and stock market gets rise in index. Then the investor withdraws his money with profit and market suddenly collapses. The after math always be faced by poor people.

Privatization

Government is unable to manage the departments and country has low reserve assets. So the meet the requirements some companies run by government are sold to foreign investors. The commodities or services provided by the companies are becoming costly. For example if government sold a gas plant then prices for gas in country rises.

Moral Culture

The main reason for poverty is the social dishonesty and irresponsible behavior of people. Every one is trying to get rich by using unfair means. A shop keeper is ready to get whole money from the pocket of customer. People doing jobs are not performing their duties well. In society the man considered brave or respectful who do not pay taxes or continuously violate the laws. This irresponsible behavior continuously increases and produces loss for county.

More Causes of Poverty

Division of Agricultural Land

Pakistan is an agricultural country. Most of people are farmers by profession. One has land which is fulfilling the needs of his family but he has to divide the land into his children when they got young. After division the land is not sufficient to support a family. Now the families of his children are suffering and spending their lives below poverty line.

Materialism

In our society social bonding are gradually becomes thinner and thinner. A race of material object has been started even no one tried to understand the problems of others. Every one is gradually changing from human to a bioman which only know about his needs and have no concept about the limitations of others. People are not ready to help each other. At last every one has lose his trust on others which effect our social and economic system and it is another cause of poverty.

Lack of Education

The literacy rate of Pakistan is very low. Most of people do not have any concept about the modern earning sources. Most people are unable to adopt technology for their business needs, that’s why business do not meet international standards and results as decrease in revenue which lead the society to poor financial conditions.

Causes of Poverty

Government Policies:

Government is not well aware of present conditions of country. The policies of government are base on the suggestions of officials which do not have awareness about the problems of a common man. After implementation the policies do not get effective result. After the failure of one policy, government does not consider its failure and announces another policy without studying the aftermaths of last one. Heavy taxes and unemployment crushes the people and they are forced to live below poverty line. The suitable medical facilities are not provided to people and they are forced to get treatment for private clinics which are too costly.

Corruption:

Another cause of poverty is corruption. There are two types of corruption. There is not morality and every one is trying to earn more and more by using fair and unfair means. Officials waste their time has low efficiency. Only one relationship that is exists in society is money. One has to pay a heavy cost to get his right. Law and order conditions are out of control and institutions are failed to provide justice to a common man. Justice can be bought by money only. But government is unable to control such type of things. In this whole scenario some corrupt people has been occupying the resources and common man is living in miserable conditions.

Poverty in Pakistan

According to the Human Development in South Asia 2007 survey in the past ten years, all South Asian countries experienced a decline in poverty apart from Bangladesh, as defined in terms of percentage of population living below the international poverty line of $1 a day. A careful analysis of trends in the percentage of population below the income poverty line gives rise to a number of important concerns. First, it turns out that the rate of decline in poverty during the past ten years the rate at which the economy was growing the poverty rate was not that much declining. In India for example, recent studies have found that despite higher overall growth, the extent of poverty reduction in the (1993-2005) period is not been higher, and in fact a little lower, than the pre-reform period of 1983-1993, the reduction in poverty has been quite uneven across the rural-urban divide in almost all South Asian countries. Studies have showed that the percentage of population living below the poverty line has declined significantly in urban areas; it has gone up or at the most remained stagnant in rural areas for all South Asian countries.

In case of Pakistan at the time of independence Pakistan has very low resources and capital, so the processes of progress were very slow. Unfortunately the politicians of Pakistan were all not well aware of modern global system and the progress processes and the needs of country. Due to bad policies today Pakistan is facing a lot of problems. The continuous failure of policies leads the people of country to miserable conditions. The major problem in the country is poverty which is becoming the cause of crime and social disorder. It is difficult to point out all causes of poverty in Pakistan but some of it will be discussed in coming posts

Child Labor in Pakistan

Children are like flowers, they require love care, attention and the right conditions into which to grow, they need to get strong and make their roots deep and firm, and they need the right conditions to bloom when the time comes. In the morning some children go to schools while others go to work killing their aspirations, dreams and other wishes, no mother wants to send their child to work; will they not be willing to send their child to some school for better future? As they have no other way as their family face bundle of problems. These children play a key role in sustaining the economically life of their family without which, their families would not be able to make ends meet. The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines child Labor as a child working during early age and overworks or gives over time to Labor due to the psychologically, socially, and materialistic pressure and he also easily becomes ready to Labor on a very low pay.
According to the UNICEF “child” is defined as anyone bellow the age of 18, and when they do some type of work that harms them or exploits them in some way(physically, mentally, morally or blocking access to education) when they are bellow the age of 18 is called as “child labor”.
Coming toward Pakistan we see from the population survey that there are above 40 million children from the age group of 5 to 15 in which 3.8 million are affected by child labor. Now let me show you what these innocent children do which we call it labor work.
• Work inside underground mines, including blasting and assisting in blasting
• Work with power driven cutting machinery like saws, shears, and guillotines, ( Thrashers, fodder cutting machines, also marbles)
• Work with live electrical wires over 50V.
• Operation related to leather tanning process e.g. soaking, dehairing, liming chrome tanning, deliming, pickling defleshing, and ink application.
• Mixing or application or pesticides insecticide/fumigation.
• Sandblasting and other work involving exposure to free silica.
• Work with exposure to all toxic, explosive and carcinogenic chemicals
• Work with exposure to cement dust (cement industry)
• Work with exposure to coal dust
• Manufacture and sale of fireworks explosives
• Work at the sites where Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) are filled in cylinders.
• Work on glass and metal furnaces
• Work in the clothe printing, dyeing and finishing sections
• Work inside sewer pipelines, pits, storage tanks
• Stone crushing
• Lifting and carrying of heavy weight specially in transport industry ( 15b kg and above)
• Work between 10 pm to 8 am ( Hotel Industry)
• Carpet waving
• Working 2 meter above the floor
• Scavenging work including hospital waste
• tobacco process ( including Niswar) and Manufacturing
• Commercial fishing/ sea food and fish processing
• Sheep casing and wool industry
• Surgical instrument manufacturing specially in vendors workshop
After seeing this questions arises in our minds
What are these children learning?
What is there future?
Is this is what they have thought for?
Is there is no one for their help?
Now let us see what have given growth to child labor
• Poverty (Income of 65.5% people of Pakistan is below 2 U.S. dollars a day and 47 million people in Pakistan are leading lines below the line of poverty)
• Lack of opportunities
• High rate of population growth
• Unemployment
• Uneven distribution of wealth and resources
• Outdated social customs and norms
As we all know that today children are the future of our country so as an individual and group we should overcome the increase in child labor and especially government should put restriction on child labor and on the other hand give opportunity to their families to earn income.
Christopher Reeve says that once you choose hope, anything's possible.