62 per cent of domestic workers are girls
KARACHI, July 29: At least 62 per cent of the children engaged in domestic jobs are girls, shows a study conducted recently by a local NGO under its rapid assessment project covering Islamabad and the four provincial capitals.
Based on selected localities and surveying 2,492 households, the study reveals that every fourth households in the country has child hired for domestic work and a majority of these children is female.
However, it identifies distinct provincial variations in the number of such domestic workers in different provincial centres. In Peshawar and Quetta, the proportion of females among these children is lower than in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad/ Rawalpindi.
The NWFP and Balochistan are dominated by relatively conservative families which do not prefer hiring a female domestic worker as they do not like girls’ mobility and employment. Many of the children interviewed for the research were in the age group of 6-10 years (27 per cent) and 11-14 (42 per cent).
Child abuse rampant
According to the rapid assessment study, the child workers are subject to all forms of abuse — verbal, physical, sexual etc. — and many are in debt bondage and many others under the camouflage of adoption, thus deprived of their basic rights. They cannot get education and seek time and permission to play.
They work long hours and their duties and work timings, even the wage in most cases, are not defined. Most of these children are illiterate and have no alternative livelihood skills, says the study, adding that they are trapped in inter-generational poverty and servitude. These children have been working under difficult circumstances and are exposed to health and other hazards.
Domestic work is part of the informal labour sector and not registered in the national child labour statistics, it points out, observing that domestic child labour casts an adverse impact on the growth and development of these children.
The study finds that the children are face with various problems that mar their personality. They lose their respect in society, selfhood and freedom, parental nurture and guidance, physical health, education, psycho-social and emotional development while being exposed to gross abuse and exploitation.
The study regrets that child labour in domestic work is very common and acceptable to society in Pakistan, though it is considered as one of the worst forms of child labour worldwide. Despite some interventions and strong recommendations by certain civil society organisations, the Ministry of Labour is yet to enlist child labour in domestic work as ‘hazardous occupation’.
Source: Dawn
Date:7/31/2007
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