"There is work that profits children, and there is work that brings profit

only to employers. The object of employing children is not to train them,

but to get high profits from their work."

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 PREPARED BY:

SAAD NAUMAAN
[091116]

BABAR MAJEED [091118]

PREPARED FOR:

• Sir Muhammad Imran

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We thank Almighty Allah for giving us opportunity to learn and seek knowledge. We are
also thankful to our beloved parents who were very cooperative throughout the research
and made it possible to complete the task in a good manner. Other than that we thank to
our respectable teacher Muhammad Imran who was always there to help and guide us
all the time whenever we needed him. It was because of him that we had such an
excellent practical experience through which we learned a lot. It was because of our
teacher who assigned us such a topic with the help of which we learned minute details
about child labor.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...................................................................................................3
These efforts resulted in the establishment in 1912 of the Children's Bureau as a
federal information clearinghouse. In 1913 the Children's Bureau was transferred to
the Department of Labor. When Congress passed federal child labor laws in 1916
and 1918, they were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. ......................6
CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL (COUNTRY WISE )............................................22

Who is a Child
International conventions define children as aged 18 and under. Individual governments
may define "child" according to different ages or other criteria. "Child" and "childhood"
are also defined differently by different cultures. A "child" is not necessarily delineated
by a fixed age. Social scientists point out that child’s abilities and maturities vary so
much that defining a child's maturity by calendar age can be misleading.

Definition of a Child Labor

Child labor is the employment of children at regular and sustained labor. "Child labor" is,
generally speaking, work for children that harms them or exploits them in some way
physically, mentally, morally, or by blocking access to education. UNICEF defines child
labor as work that exceeds a minimum number of hours, depending on the age of a child
and on the type of work. Such work is considered harmful to the child and should
therefore be eliminated.
There is no universally accepted definition of child labor. Varying definitions of the term
are used by international organizations, non-governmental organizations, trade unions
and other interest groups. Writers and speakers don't always speak what definition they
are using and that often leads to confusion.

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 BACKGROUND
The majority of the world’s children do some work every day, usually in the form of
household chores or an after school job, which develop skills and a sense of
responsibility. However, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) the
harsh reality is that 390 million child-workers worldwide are involved in activities that
are either hazardous, excessive or where their employers exploit them. Inevitably, the
emotional, physical and psychological effects for these children can be extremely
damaging and such work leaves little or no time for play or school.

The rise of the factory system in the nineteenth century led to widespread employment of
children as cheap laborers. In United States, child labor was uncontroversial in the
colonial period, as children worked on family farms or would enter into trade
apprenticeships between ages 10 and 14. Educational reformers in the mid-nineteenth
century pressed for legislation that would establish wage minimums and school
attendance requirements. These efforts at the social protection of children were stymied
by the influx of southern and eastern European immigrants, the patchwork quality of
American state legislation and the powerful interests who sought, for economic reasons,
to confine the protective legislation. Child labor grew such that by 1900, 18 percent of
10-15 year olds the official figure of 1.75 million were employed. One-quarter of
southern cotton mill employees were under 15 half of these children were under 12. After
the Civil War, the availability of natural resources, new inventions, and a receptive
market combined to fuel an industrial boom. The demand for labor grew, and in the late
19th and early 20th centuries many children were drawn into the labor force. Factory
wages were so low that children often had to work to help support their families.
Businesses liked to hire children because they worked in unskilled jobs for lower wages
than adults, and their small hands made them more adept at handling small parts and
tools.

For the first time the industrialized world’s diplomats and economists started discussing
why vast numbers of children were working rather than being educated, and what should
be done about it. The focus was on developing countries. This new attention to an old
issue was largely due to worries raised by people in industrialized countries such as the

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United Kingdom. Trade unionists, politicians and campaigners for social justice voiced
concern that jobs were disappearing rapidly as businesses switched production from the
industrialized world to developing countries where labor costs were much lower.

Simultaneously, organizations in developing countries sounded the alarm when they saw
children working longer and longer hours not only producing goods for export, but also
providing a cheap and malleable workforce for the local economy. As more attention was
given to the work children were performing, so the statistics about the numbers involved
became more startling. In the early 1990s, the number of children between 5 and 14 in
full-time employment had been 100 million but by 1996 it was 120 million.

By the early 1900s many Americans were calling child labor "child slavery" and were
demanding an end to it. They argued that long hours of work deprived children of the
opportunity of an education to prepare themselves for a better future. Instead, child labor
condemned them to a future of illiteracy, poverty, and continuing misery. The National
Child Labor Committee was organized in 1904 to address the problem. In 1904 a group
of progressive reformers founded the National Child Labor Committee, an organization
whose goal was the abolition of child labor. The organization received a charter from
Congress in 1907. It hired teams of investigators to gather evidence of children working
in harsh conditions and then organized exhibitions with photographs and statistics to
dramatize the plight of these children. Along with numerous state child labor groups, the
movement "pioneered the techniques of mass political action, including investigations by
experts, the widespread use of photography to dramatize the poor conditions of children
at work, pamphlets, leaflets and mass mailings to reach the public and sophisticated
lobbying. The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for
wages climbed from 1.5 million in 1890 to 2 million in 1910.

These efforts resulted in the establishment in 1912 of the Children's Bureau as a federal
information clearinghouse. In 1913 the Children's Bureau was transferred to the
Department of Labor. When Congress passed federal child labor laws in 1916 and 1918,
they were declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

By 1920 the number of child laborers was cut to nearly half of what it had been in 1910.
Child labor opponents managed to press for Congressional passage of a constitutional
amendment authorizing federal child labor legislation in 1924 church groups and farm
organizations prevented ratification. But Child labor came under the international
spotlight in the 1990s.

In 2002, when the information available had been scrutinized more carefully, the total
was estimated at 211 million, along with a further 141 million young people aged 15 to
17 who were also in employment.

INTRODUCTION

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Child labor is one of the more harrowing aspects of 19th century history and undoubtedly
an emotive topic. To get employment reform acts passed as legislation, reformers
highlighted stories of the horrific treatment of children in mills and down the mines. Not
all work is bad for children. Some social scientists point out that some kinds of work may
be completely unobjectionable except for one thing about the work that makes it
exploitative. For instance, a child who delivers newspapers before school might actually
benefit from learning how to work, gaining responsibility, and earn a bit of money. Then
he or she is being exploited. As UNICEF’s 1997 State of the World's Children Report
puts it, "Children's work needs to be seen as happening along a continuum, with
destructive or exploitative work at one end and beneficial work promoting or enhancing
children's development without interfering with their schooling, recreation and rest at the
other. And between these two poles are vast areas of work that need not negatively affect
a child's development." Other social scientists have slightly different ways of drawing the
line between acceptable and unacceptable work. Children's participation in economic
activity that does not negatively affect their health and development or interfere with
education, can be positive. Work that does not interfere with education (light work) is
permitted from the age of 12 years under the International Labor Organization (ILO). So
child engaged in part time work to learn practical skill linked to social or inherited
custom or crafts is not child labor. It becomes "child labor" only when child weaves
carpet in a factory or factory, earns money to support family without schooling, social
development. On the other hand if child works for 3 to 4 hours to earn for self or parents
after schooling, would not be known as child labor as is additional education and
practical skill that a child learns.
HOW MANY CHILD LABOUR ARE THERE?
The ILO estimates, "246 million child workers aged 5 and 17 were involved in child
labor, of which 171 million were involved in work that by its nature is hazardous to their
safety, physical or mental health, and moral development. Moreover, some 8.4 million
children were engaged in so-called 'unconditional' worst forms of child labor, which
include forced and bonded labor, the use of children in armed conflict, trafficking in
children and commercial sexual exploitation."

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 STATICTICS ABOUT CHILD LABOR

›The vast majority of working children about 70 per cent work in the agriculture sector.
›Sub-Saharan Africa has an estimated 48 million child workers.
›Almost one child in three (29 per cent) below the age of 15 is economically active,15 per
cent of children in the Middle East and North Africa are working; approximately 2.5
million and 2.4 million children are working in developed and transition economies
respectively.
›A recent UNICEF survey in 25 countries in just one region, sub-Saharan Africa,
revealed that almost one-third of the working children aged between 5 and 14 were
involved in the “unconditional worst forms” of child labor.
›In addition, almost 10 per cent were working for more than 43 hours a week, threatening
their wellbeing.
›The incidence of child labor is highest in Africa, where 41% of 5- to 14-year-olds are
known to work, compared with 21% in Asia and 17% in Latin America and the
Caribbean.
›Nevertheless, with its higher population, Asia has the largest total number of working
Children, 60 per cent of the world’s total.
›Official figures produced by the ILO indicate that at least 200 million young children
under the age of 15 are working to support themselves and their families. The actual total
may be twice as high.

PAKISTAN LABOR FORCE GRAPH AND DATA

Percent
Year Labor force Rank
Change
2003 40,400,000 11
2004 43,980,000 11 8.86 %
2005 45,430,000 10 3.30 %

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 2006 46,840,000 10 3.10 %
2007 48,290,000 10 3.10 %
2008 48,230,000 10 -0.12 %

AN ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

Incentives, Constraints and Agency:

When discussing the determinants of child labor, the idea that poverty compels child
labor reflects the importance of subsistence constraints. However, micro-data reveal that
children work in households that cannot be classified as subsistence-poor. There must,
therefore, be other reasons that children work.
A useful organization of causes is to categorize them as incentives, constraints or agency.
Thus children may work because the net returns to education are low and the returns to
work experience are relatively large. Policy can modify incentives, for example, by
improving school quality or lowering school fees. Even where incentives favor education
over work, a household may be compelled by poverty constraints to send a child to work.
When these are binding, the opportunity cost of schooling is too high. In this case, policy
interventions are best targeted at alleviating poverty in households supplying child labor.
Most child workers are employed on household-run farms or enterprises, by their own
families. Even if they work outside the home, decisions over child time allocation are

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often taken by adults. While these adults are typically parents, a substantial and growing
fraction of children in Africa are in the care of adults who are not their parents- this is
because of both fostering and orphan hood. There are therefore agency issues relating to
child labor that distinguish it from adult labor. Child welfare may be raised by policies
that make schooling compulsory or that ban child labor, thereby eliminating adult agency.
For example, adult labor supply decisions will determine the tightness of the household
budget constraint. So adults with limited altruism may choose to consume some leisure
while sending children to work. If poverty is measured by adult income then what
appears to be a poverty constraint might in fact be relaxed under greater parent altruism.

Markets and Institutions

The strength of markets and institutions will mediate the force of incentives, constraints
and agency. The role of imperfections in the markets for credit, land and labor, and the
part played by tastes and norms will be discussed here. For example, underdeveloped
credit markets will tend to increase the impact of constraints in determining child labor.
Limited access to capital markets not only perpetuates chronic poverty but also traps non-
poor households. In some societies and at certain stages of industrialization, child labor
may be more acceptable than in other times and places.

Supply and Demand

We have so far spoken largely of how incentives, constraints and agency, working
through markets and institutions, influence the decision to supply child labor. Together
with total supply, demand determines relative wages and hence the incentive to supply
labor. If child labor is in fact substitutable for (unskilled) adult labor in production, then
cost-minimizing employers will only prefer children if they are effectively cheaper. In
principle, a well- functioning labor market should equalize effective wages, that is, wages
adjusted for productivity. Under these conditions, employers are indifferent between
adults and children and, with improvement in adult skills and, thereby, the relative
productivity of adults, households will face a falling nominal return to child labor. In
practice, however, just as women continue to be paid less than men for equal work,
children may be paid disproportionately less than adults. This sort of wage
discrimination, by making child labor more cost-effective, raises the demand for it.
Total demand increases or decreases depend upon the relative strength of efficiency and
substitution effects. This is basically concentrated on the supply side that is on the
characteristics of households that send children into work or upon the characteristics of
children themselves. Many do not control for demand effects which may be done by
including region fixed effects or a regional unemployment rate.
CHILD LABOR AND EDUCATION
Child labor is closely associated with poverty. Many poor families are unable to afford
school fees or other school costs. The family may depend on the contribution that a
working child makes to the household's income, and place more importance on that than
on education. And when a family has to make a choice between sending either a boy or

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girl to school, it is often the girl who loses out. More than ever today, children need a
good quality education and training if they are to acquire the skills necessary to succeed
in the labor market. However, in many countries the schools which are accessible to the
poor families are under-resourced and inadequate. Poor facilities, over-sized classes, and
lack of trained teachers lead to low standards of education. In the Millennium
Development Goals the United Nations and the broader international community set
targets of ensuring that by 2015 all boys and girls complete a full course of primary
education and that there is gender parity in education. These targets cannot be met unless
the factors that generate child labor and prevent poor families from sending children to
school are addressed. Among the most important steps required are:
•Provision of free and compulsory education;
•Tackling barriers to girls education;
•Ensuring that children have access to a school and a safe and quality learning
environment;
•Providing catch up education opportunities for children and youth who have so far
missed out on formal schooling;
•Tackling the worldwide shortage of teachers and ensuring a properly trained and
professional teaching force;
•Enforcing laws on child labor and education in line with international standards;
•Tackling poverty, and creating decent work for adults;
•Raising public awareness to tackle child labor.

Child laborers work for most of the time. In some cases they work for 16 hours a day.
This deprives the child from time to seek education, which is essential for the overall
development and future progress of the child. Some children are bound by their
employers as slaves and have to work all the time. In some cases the poverty of the
household and low level of parental education are responsible for child labor. The value
of education is less important to the parents than the income the child earns for them. In
the present money-oriented environment, the parents consider putting their child to work
a better education method than schooling as work assures survival and better future
prospects. This is due to the failure of many graduates to get a job, which is evident from
the high level of unemployment existing among them.
"Education broadens your mind but it does not teach you
how to survive”.

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Pverty and child Labor
From a policy perspective, it is interesting to consider how child labor responds to trends
in economic growth and globalization. There is some evidence on the effects of growth
and trade-expansion on poverty and poverty levels will reflect changes associated with
growth and trade reform for instance, in consumer and producer prices, a first step in
linking the available micro econometric evidence with the larger questions of growth and
Globalization is to study the relation of poverty and child labor.

(a) Market Imperfections

Productive assets like land or enterprise-capital will have negative wealth effects on child
labor and, in a perfect-markets economy we would expect the children of large
landowners to be less likely to be in work than the children of small landowners or
landless agricultural workers. The common presumption is that child labor emerges from
the poorest households.
(b) Poverty Constraints
A negative effect of income on hours of work is, however, expected for adults and for
children and in poor as well as non-poor households. In other words, it only indicates that
Child leisure or child schooling is a normal good. Generally, if the household is very
poor, the income effect will tend to dominate the substitution effect and the wage
elasticity will be negative. Thus a testable prediction of the hypothesis of compelling
poverty is that the wage elasticity is negative. Positive wage elasticity, on the other hand,
is consistent with the view that children work on account of the relative returns to school
being low.

(c) Multiple Choices

Men’s decision to work can be quite adequately modeled as a choice between markets
work, self-employment and leisure. In the case of women, a third choice is home
production i-e productive work within the households for which there is no explicit wage.
In the case of children, a third choice is school attendance. The child labor supply
decision involves allocation of time between labor, leisure and school. The basic

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assumptions are that leisure is a good and labor is a bad and it is probably reasonable to
assume that the marginal utility of school attendance is positive.
Labor brings the benefits of a wage income today as well as the benefit of experience
accumulation and therefore higher wages tomorrow. Education also promises higher
wages tomorrow, so time allocation has to weigh up these dynamic benefits since more
education usually means less work experience.
PER CAPITA TOTAL OPPURTUNITY COST OF CHILD LABOR IN EACH
REGION AND IN URBAN/RURAL AREAS

GROWTH IN SECTORS

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FACTS & FIGURES OF CHILD LABOR IN ASIA AND
WORLDWIDE
According to estimates by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in their report of
June 2006, the numbers of children working aged 5 to 14 is:
○Globally 190 million
○In Asia 122 million
○In sub-Saharan Africa 50 million. In fact 26 percent of all children work here

○ In Latin America 5 million.

○ In the rest of the world 13 million.

○ Across Africa, there are an estimated 80 million child workers, a number that could rise
to 100 million by 2015.

Hazardous child labour:

Approximately 126 million children work in jobs which are considered hazardous forms
of child labour. These include:

• Slavery
• Child trafficking
• Bonded labour
• Prostitution

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 • Any other work which is harmful for the health, safety and morals of children.

A survey carried out by the ILO showed that 70% of working children are involved in
agriculture, forestry and hunting. There is a close interweavement here with the informal
economy in which by far most working children are involved. Hence it can occur that
commercial plantations contract work out to small family farms - or families manufacture
goods in their homes which are then sold by a company on the domestic market or
abroad.
Injuries caused by unacceptable working conditions:
Very few children are left unaffected by the frequent hard physical and hazardous work
they carry out. Children suffer from:

• Broken arms and legs

• Burns
• Skin diseases
• Blindness
• Deafness
• Headaches, stomach-aches and breathing difficulties.

TYPES OF CHILD LABOR

Child Labor is not only found in factories, but also in many other places. Their %age is;

1. Agricultural Labor 42.1%

2. Cultivators-34.8%

3. Mining, quarrying - 6.5%

4. Manufacturing ex. industry - 5.4%

5. Trade and commerce-2.5%

6. Household industry-4%

7. Others- 4.6%

CAUSES OF CHILD LABOR

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The main causes or reasons for creating child labor are;

OVER POPULATION: Most of the Asian and African countries are overpopulated. Due
to limited resources and more mouths to feed, Children are employed in various forms of
work.

ILLITERACY: Illiterate parents do not realize the need for a proper physical, emotional
and cognitive development of a child. As they are uneducated, they do not realize the
importance of education for their children.

POVERTY: Many a time poverty forces parents to send their children to hazardous jobs.
Although they know it is wrong, they have no other alternative as they need the money.

URBANIZATION: The Industrial Revolution has its own negative side. Many a time
MNC's and export industries in the developing world employ while workers, particularly
in the garment industry.

UNEMPLOYMENT OF ELDERS: Elders often find it difficult to get jobs. The

industrialists and factory owners find it profitable to employ children. This is so because
they can pay less and extract more work. They will also not create union problem.

ORPHANS: Children born out of wedlock, children with no parents and relatives, often
do not find anyone to support them. Thus they are forced to work for their own living.

WILLINGNESS TO EXPLOIT CHILDREN: This is at the root of the problem Even if a

family is very poor; the incidence of child labor will be very low unless there are people
willing to exploit these children.

MYTHS ABOUT CHILD LABOR

FOUR WRONG NOTIONS ABOUT CHILD LABOUR:

1. Child labor is only found in poor countries.

While it is true that in underdeveloped countries, child labor is found in large numbers
.But it is also true that child is prevalent in almost all countries. For example, if in a
developed country some children before going to school sells newspapers for one or two
hours, very few people view it as child exploitation, even though that child might be
getting a fraction of what is being paid to an adult for the same job. It is true that in most
of the rich countries too, child labor takes place. Often the exploited ones are the minority
or immigrant children.

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2. Child labor is only found in the industries.

It is true that the child labor in the industries is the most visible layer. While it is also true
that children in Pakistan make footballs in factories, but we cannot ignore the lakhs of
child laborers who work in unorganized sector where they face equal or greater dangers.
In truth, only 5.4% of child laborers work in industries. If we fall into the fallacy that the
most exploited children are the ones who work in factories then we are doing injustice to
those whose labors are practically invisible.

3. Child labor can be removed by legislation.

This is not true. Legislation has proved to be a notoriously difficult thing to enforce.
Therefore, it has not been effective. Every country has by now passed many laws against
child labor.

4. Without removing poverty we cannot solve the problem of child labor.

While it is true that most of the child laborers come from poor families, the fact is that it
is an employer’s willingness to exploit children which is at the root of the problem.
However a poor family is they will be no problem regarding child labor unless there are
people who are willing to exploit such children.

EFFECTS OF CHILD LABOR

1. Child labor deprives a child of a proper childhood.

2. He suffers physical and mental torture.

3. He becomes mentally and emotially mature too fast which is a dangerous sign.

4. Child labor creates and perpetuates poverty.

5. It condemns the child to a life of unskilled, badly paid work.

6. Ultimately this leads to child labor with each generation.

IMPACTS OF CHILD LABOR

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 (a) In Pakistan

Like elsewhere across the South Asia where governments are suffering from bad
administration and poor governance, Pakistan is also suffering from the lingering peril of
child labor and the economic exploitation of the poor. Because of peculiar socio-
economic conditions and the chaotic political situations in the third world countries like
Pakistan, Governments and the public sector institutions responsible for keeping an eye
on the child labor and child exploitation, often fail to come up to the expectations of the
society.

It has been observed that rising economic costs of life often resulting in falling living
standards, lingering political crises, rising unemployment and poor planning, joblessness,
unplanned population migration to mega cities, rapid urbanization, lack of education and
many other factors have resulted in spiraling child labor as poor families cannot afford to
cope with multiple economic crunch and use their children as a pawn to earn some extra
pennies. Child labor, with the passage of time, has emerged as the biggest challenge to
the society and the government in ensuring conducive atmosphere for the children with
poor economic background. Unfortunately, child labor is deeply engraved in the social
culture of Pakistan.

In Pakistan children aged 5 to 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 group of 5 to 9
years. Even out of these 3.8 million 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 Pakistan are leading lines below the line of poverty,
whereas the Social Policy Development Centre (SPDC) Karachi has stated in one of its

BUSINESS ECONOMICS - 18 -
reports that the ratio of poverty in Pakistan was 33% during 1999 that increased in 2001
and reached 38%. The ratio of poverty in the current year is around 30%.Consider the
point that if 30% of our country’s total population is leading life below the poverty-line
wherein the people are deprived of basic necessities of life like clothing, shelter, food,
education and medication, the children of these people will be forced to become Laborers
or workers in order to survive. Another reason of child Labor in Pakistan is that our
people don’t have the security of social life. There is no aid plan or allowance for
children in our country. Class-based education system is another reason for increasing
child Labor; villages lack standardized education systems and as a result, child Labor is
on increase in rural areas. The government has not put its laws into practice to stop child
Labor in our country. Employers after exploiting child Labor, extract a large surplus,
whereas child Labor, despite increasing poverty, unemployment and other problems, are
pressed to do anything and everything for their livelihood and the survival of their
families.

The issue of child labor and the economic exploitation of children of a lesser God has
always been a burning issue in Pakistan. Successive governments tried to hush up this
gargantuan issue, having multiple implications, while civil society and the media
attempts to draw out kaleidoscopic view of the spiraling problem. While child labor has
serious impact on the children’s mental and social development, it also impedes their
emotional growth. Children are our only hope for a better future and if we desire a better
and prosperous Pakistan then we must give them their right of education. Education is the
foremost fundamental right of the children which must be protected and given to each
and every child. Although a number of protecting laws contain provisions prohibiting
child labor or regulating the working conditions of children and adolescent workers but
the issue still remain unresolved. Pakistan has enacted many laws for eradicating child
labor. The Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan states that;
“No child below the age of fourteen shall be engaged in any factory or mine or in any
other hazardous employment.” And also, “All forms of forced labor and traffic in
human beings are prohibited.”

Various child labor issues are dealt with under following laws.
(a) The Factories Act, 1934
(b) The West Pakistan Shops and Establishments Ordinance, 1969
(c) The Employment of Children Act, 1991
(d) The Bonded Labor System Abolition Act, 1992
(e) The Punjab Compulsory Education Act, 1994

It is a great pity that out of the 160 million population of Pakistan, it is estimated that
there are well over 10 million child laborers below the age of 18 years, the age where
childhood ends. The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines child Labor as:

BUSINESS ECONOMICS - 19 -
 (a) When a child is working during early age
(b) He overworks or gives over time to Labor
(c) He works due to the psychologically, socially, and materialistic pressure
(d) He becomes ready to Labor on a very low pay

Punjab government is giving special attention to the social sector development for
poverty alleviation and creating more job opportunities for the jobless. In this regard, a
sum of Rs.58.64 billion has been provided in the Annual Development Program of the
Punjab province to improve health care, education, social welfare and provision of water
and sewerage facilities.
Punjab Government is also strengthening its “Center for Improvement of Working
Conditions and Environment” for improving occupational safety and health surveillance
of the workers. A sum of Rs.100 million is also being utilized on seven different projects
relating to labor welfare in the province. However, child labor cannot be eliminated by
government efforts alone. Civil society, media, community leaders, Ulema and the
scholars should also come out and foster the need of keeping families small. We must
lean to live according to our economic means. Education is the only way to get rid of
vicious circle of poverty. It is also needed to bring behavioral change towards adoption of
affordable family size for better maternal and child health and sustainable socio-
economic development to achieve the desired population growth rate in the province.
Punjab government must adopt a holistic mechanism to fully utilize it Population Welfare
department for sensitizing the people about utility of small families.

(b) On International Business

Child labor is linked to global business directly and, more commonly, indirectly. Critics
blame increased trade and financial flows for increased child labor, and those criticisms
that have undermined the legitimacy of further trade and financial liberalization.
Companies including multinationals such as Nike, Wal-Mart, Ikea and the Brazilian
subsidiaries of U.S. and European automobile manufacturers have responded with a
range of initiatives. Unless business responses alleviate the worst forms of child labor,
the legitimacy of continued trade and financial liberalization will continue to be
undermined by perceptions that liberalization disproportionately hurts children,
especially child workers. This linkage between child labor and trade makes child labor at
least an indirect concern for many businesses.
International Business and Child Labor: Three Dimensions
Business’ role in the economy of child labor has at least three dimensions, both in the
formal and informal economic sectors. The three dimensions are:

►DIRECT: A firm or enterprise employs children directly.

►INDIRECT: Goods and services produced by children are purchased from other firms.
►EXTERNAL: A firm or enterprise plays a part, beyond its direct business interests, in
shaping opinions and policies concerning child labor in the local economy.

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(a) DIRECT: A firm or enterprise employs children directly:
As mentioned, the majority of direct employment is in the informal sector, where
children take part in performing services, small-scale manufacturing, various agricultural
occupations and work in the home. Many of these children are “hidden” workers, because
they only work in their homes and thus do not show up in formal labor force statistics.
Although many of these children are working under family supervision, full-time home
work can bar a child from attending school; and many home-based activities can be as
hazardous as work performed outside the home. In the formal sector, when children are
employed, it is usually in businesses featuring fierce competition among producers, low
barriers to entry, and labor-intensive work for relatively low-skill labor requirements.

(b) INDIRECT: Goods and services produced by children are purchased from other
firms.

This dimension is increasing as formal sector firms purchase goods and services made by
informal sector firms or enterprises, goods made in traditional home settings, and goods
made by enterprises that have them outsourced production to home workers. In some
cases, firms have been initially unaware that such production has a child-labor
component.

(c) EXTERNAL: A firm or enterprise plays a part, beyond its direct business
interests, in shaping opinions and policies concerning child labor in the local
economy.

Some firms play active roles to shape local-economy attitudes toward child labor and the
educational institutions and social services that affect children. This third dimension has
increased in prominence as global economic integration has led international business to
playing a larger role in shaping the public policies of governments around the world.

Primary school enrolment and attendance

Primary school Primary school Primary school
enrolment rate enrolment rate attendance rate
Countries and (2000-2007*) (2000-2007*) (2000-2007*)
Territories Gross Net Net
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
Afghanistan 126 75 101 74 46 61 66 40 53
Albania 106 105 105 94 93 94 92 92 92
Bangladesh 101 105 103 87 91 89 79 84 81
Canada 100 99 100 99 100 100 - - -
China 112 111 111 99 99 99 - - -
Germany 103 103 103 98 98 98 - - -
Egypt 108 102 105 98 94 96 96 94 95
Japan 100 100 100 100 100 100 - - -

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Iraq 109 90 100 95 82 89 91 80 86
Kenya 107 104 106 75 76 76 79 79 79
Pakistan 94 74 84 74 57 66 60 51 56
United Kingdom 105 106 105 98 99 98 - - -

Mexico 114 111 113 98 97 98 97 97 97

Hungary 98 96 97 89 88 88 - - -

SUMMARY
INDICATORS
Sub-Saharan
101 90 96 75 70 73 64 61 62
Africa
Eastern and
110 104 107 83 81 82 66 66 66
Southern Africa
Western and
93 77 85 67 58 63 63 56 59
Central Africa
Middle East and
102 97 100 86 81 84 88 85 87
North Africa
South Asia 111 104 108 88 83 85 81 77 79
East Asia and
111 110 111 98 97 98 92 92 92
Pacific
Latin America
120 116 118 94 95 95 90 91 91
and Caribbean
Central and
Eastern Europe,
Commonwealth 98 96 97 92 90 91 93 91 92
of Independent
States
Industrialized
101 101 101 95 96 96 - - -
countries
Developing
109 103 106 89 86 87 80 77 78
countries
Least
developed 101 91 96 79 74 77 65 63 64
countries
World 108 103 105 90 87 88 80 77 78

CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL (COUNTRY WISE )

Country Primary NER or NAR, Children of primary school age Official Source of
2000-2007* out of school (thousands), primary primary
2007 school NER or

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 age
Male Female Total Year Male Female Total NAR
(years)
Ministry of
Education
Afghanistan 74 46 61 2007 626 1190 1816 7 - 12
2008
(NER)
UIS 2008
Albania 94 93 94 2004 6 7 13 6-9
(NER)
UIS 2008
Algeria 96 94 95 2006 69 108 177 6 - 11
(NER)
UIS 2008
Andorra 83 83 83 2006 0 0 0 6 - 11
(NER)
MICS 2001
Angola 58 59 58 2001 415 409 824 6-9
(NAR)
Antigua and
- - - - - - 5 - 11
Barbuda
Denmark 95 96 96 2006 11 8 19 7 - 12 UIS 2008

UIS 2008
Nigeria 68 59 63 2005 3973 5027 9000 6 - 11
(NER)
Regional
Niue - - 90 2001 - - - 5 - 10 MDG report
(NER)
UIS 2008
Norway 98 98 98 2006 5 4 9 6 - 12
(NER)
Occupied
UIS 2008
Palestinian 76 76 76 2006 60 58 118 6-9
(NER)
Territory
UIS 2008
Oman 73 75 74 2006 47 42 89 6 - 11
(NER)
Pakistan 60 51

REGION WISE

Primary NER or NAR, Children of primary school age out of

Region 2000-2007 school (millions), 2007
Male Female Total Male Female Total
Sub-Saharan Africa 66 62 64 21.8 23.7 45.5
Eastern and Southern
68 69 68 10.2 9.9 20.1
Africa

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Western and Central
64 56 60 11.6 13.8 25.4
Africa
Middle East and
88 83 86 2.9 3.8 6.7
North Africa
South Asia 82 77 80 16.4 18.6 35.0
East Asia and Pacific 97 97 97 2.2 2.5 4.7
Latin America and
93 93 93 2.2 2.0 4.2
Caribbean
Central and Eastern
Europe,
93 92 93 0.8 0.9 1.7
Commonwealth of
Independent States
Industrialized
95 96 96 1.6 1.3 2.9
countries
Developing countries 84 81 83 46.7 52.2 98.9
Least developed
66 63 65 20.6 21.8 42.4
countries
World 86 83 85 47.9 52.8 100.7

CONCLUSION

As we all know that child labor is a major problem in all over the world today. It is not
only prevailing in developing countries but also it is a cursed in developed countries. If
we talk about Pakistan then the child under the age of 15 or may be less is engaged in
labor work. The main problem for this is the lack of education and lower income level of
the people.

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No doubt, child labor in United States also a dynamic problem but if we compare it with
other countries it is less than those. The main reason for flourishing the child labor in the
Pakistan is the instability of political environment. The numbers of family members are
more than the income level.

For the better eradication of this problem is the government support. Because government
should arranged such steps on international level through which this type of curse could
be removed or minimized. But, this is not only the government responsibility, we as a
citizen should forward our steps for elimination of this problem. We should arrange
seminars on v child labor; different speeches can play a vital role in this regard. And
moreover, media can play a very important role for this. Different types of ads should be
shown on TV for the awareness of this problem. If we adopted such little steps than may
be a small part of this curse could be eliminated.

In a vivid, we can say child labor is a complex problem which demands a range of
solutions. There is no better way to prevent child Labor than to make education
compulsory. The West understood this a long time ago. Laws were enacted very early to
secure continued education for working children; and now they have gone a step forward,
and required completion of at least the preliminary education of the child before he or she
starts work. Better solutions should be adopted for its removal otherwise it will soon lick
the pillars of the world.

SUGGESTIONS

►Awareness raising activities should be arranged so that people are informed about
children’s rights to education and leisure.

►Microfinance programs so that families have sufficient income and can keep their
children out of paid work.

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►Provision of health and educational services for working children should be ensured.

►Ensuring that children orphaned by AIDS are still accorded their rights and are
equipped with skills that will help them as adults

►Plan works to raise awareness of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

►Poor people should provide such opportunities to get themselves out of poverty, and
prevent and stop all types of exploitation of children.

►Providing all children with access to education is every government’s responsibility, as

well as a practical response to preventing child labor. Free, compulsory, relevant and
good-quality education services should be given.

►laws and regulations against child labor must be in place and rigorously enforced by
governments should be in manner.

►Civil society and media engagement can change attitudes and it can condemn child
labor. It can also helps in raising awareness of its harmful effects on health and
development will help alleviate children’s vulnerability to abuse.

►Relevant school curricula and vocational training programes can be adapted to

students’ circumstances and will increase their school attendance.

►Social programes to support families in need and help them find alternative income to
replace their child’s employment will help prevent child labor. Such support is also
needed for child-headed households, orphans and children’s.

►To create awareness on the different aspects of child labor issue and start campaigns
on children’s for the implementation of children's rights.

►Family size should be small because Poor households tend to have more children, and
with large families there is a greater likelihood that children will work and have lower
school attendance and completion.

►Governments need to devote resources for Schooling and to provide good quality and
relevance atmosphere with no cost to poor families.

►Base programming on children’s own perception of what constitutes safe / harmful /

age appropriate / educational labor.

►Target and focus integrated packages of basic services on urban poor families.

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►Disabled children must receive priority attention due to their particular vulnerability to
exploitation in the worst forms of child labor on the streets.

►Expand education services to make them accessible to working children.

►To give priority attention to immediately eliminating the worst forms of child labor
with appropriate programes.

REFERENCES

www.google.com

www.unicef.org.com

www.wikipedia.com

The News

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