Chotay! Sab kaam chhor, sahab ke liye chai la!
Chotay! Ustad ki bike pe kapra maar jaldi!
In Pakistan the life of more than 3.3 million chlidren revolves around these few phrases.
You wake up in the bed..
I wake up on the street instead..
You brush your teeth, glistening as white..
I go to work, with sudden fright..
While you eat your breakfast, hungry as can be..
I weave blankets at the hardest, hoping i'll soon be free..
When you go to school..
Master ruthlessly beat me, as a mule..
When you play on a grassy playground, sweating and smelling like a skunk..
I found happiness in a playground of junk..
As you end your day , in your comfy pj's..
I light up my candle of hope, praying that i'll soon be free by someone in the globe..
In Pakistan out of 40 million children between the age of 5-14, about 3.3 million are out of school and working as child labour, they may work as "CHOTTA" in workshops, hotels or factories. The places serve as a place for these deprived children to waste the most precious years of their lives in which they could attain education
They are ignored by us , Nobody is out there to hear what they want from us. Those little hands are not made to lift weigth, they are to get books. But they are forced into labour due to certain circumstances. They are working under the worst conditions and endure extreme physical and mental torture.
- They are operating dangerous tools and machinery.
- They work in mines breathing noxious fumes
- On construction sites they exposed to harsh chemicals and other dangers.
Some children are left handicapped and crippled, some even lose their lives. Those children are working in such conditions and at very low wages than an adult would receive because their families are suffering with a very poor economic condition, there are a number of younger siblings in their families and they have to earn for them. Many of those children take the responsibility of the younger sisters and brothers as they want to educate them so they may save them from the curse of child labour. If you look into their eyes you can see hope, innocence and dreams.
Both small and large business owners are increasing their profits by under paying and over working these children.
"Child labour has serious consequences that stay with the individual and with the society for far longer than the years of childhood"
» UNITED NATION SECRETARY GENERAL : KOFI ANNAN
Children who are indulge in Child labour has no bright future as they do not get time and money to go school or colleges, they earn for their family and have no plans for their future and when they have no future then how they can become the future of our society. Child labor also promotes crimes as they start working in very early age and they got very low wages moreover some time treated very badly by the employer this leave a bad impact on them. They start doing crimes like stealing and other petty crimes and this graph of crime increases with their age.
"Child labor and poverty are inevitably bound together and if you continue to use the labor of children as the treatment for the social disease of poverty, you will have both poverty and child labor to the end of time."
» Grace Abbott
From the above all it is clear that Child labour is a curse for for our country as it promotes illiteracy and crime. For the better growth of the country it is compulsory that every child must be educated, recruited a job after their education and must be enabled to lead a happy life so that they can become the good citizen and participate in overall growth of their country.
Here the question rises what are the solutions to this problem??
Can we really just sit there and hope that child labour will come to end without putting an effort ourselves??
No, we have to take action, to help the millions of children out there to get rid of this curse.
No doubt many governmental and non-governmental organizations are working for saving every child’s future. But as a citizen of the country, we should also take necessary steps on our personal, professional and social level to stop this problem by not allowing children under 14 in our house hold activities and by complaining if we find under age children working in nearby areas. These nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) help needy people to provide them free education through various facilities such as mid day meal, shelter, food, work options for their parents with healthy environment etc.
"If we can’t begin to agree on fundamentals, such as the elimination of the most abusive forms of child labor in the world, then we are not ready to march forward into the future."
» Alexis Herman