Experts For Ending Child Labour

SARGODHA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 1st May, 2024) The children rights activists on Wednesday in connection with the world labour day demanded

the government to take steps to abolish child labour at kilns.

Talking to APP, Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) Secretary Ahmed Ghulam Naveed

demanded the government to implement the Child Protection Law in letter and spirit.

He said employment of children remained unaddressed, particularly in sectors like agriculture,

factories, workshops, shops, hotels, brick kilns, weaving, packing and construction.

Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) Executive member Muhammad

Khalil said brick-kiln workers were facing wages payment problems, adding that children

of labourers and workers should be given top priority who played a key role in strengthening

the national economy.

Former Project Manager for Child-Labour-Elimination Programme Punjab Labour & Human

Resource Department Sargodha region Sajid Khan said the Punjab government had given labourers

their due rights by taking measures for their welfare. He said 90,000 children of brick-kiln

workers had been enrolled in different government-sponsored schools for providing them

free education who were previously working in brick-kilns.

Besides, children had also been provided financial assistance of more than Rs 390 million, he added.

He said that establishment of quality educational institutions for children of labourers besides social security hospitals and labour colonies were a proof of labour-friendly policies of the Punjab government.

"An amount of Rs 80 billion has been spent on special initiatives taken for prosperity of labourers and their children during last three years," he said.

To a query, Sajid Khan said that labourers were being provided quality health facilities in Punjab Social Security Hospitals at the cost more than Rs 34.14 billion.

He said that 49,000 children of workers were being educated free of cost at Punjab Workers Welfare board Schools, including 3,800 children in Sargodha region. Moreover, Rs 3.12 billion talent scholarships had been disbursed among children of workers, he said and added that Rs 2.55 billion marriage grants had been given to children of workers besides Rs 2.74 billion death grants.

Residential colonies at the cost of Rs 12 billion had been established for workers in different cities of Punjab including Sargodha .

The Punjab Prohibition of Child Labour at Brick Kilns Act was also an achievement of the Punjab government,

he added.

To a question, he said that child labor would be eliminated from petrol pumps, workshops and hotels as well, adding more concentration on education and training of children would lead the nation to progress.