SOUTH ASIA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

2322Constitution prohibits forced labor, including forced labor performed by children;however, forced and bonded labor by children is common (see Section 6.c.).Children in juvenile detention facilities reportedly are required to work; childrenat the Karachi Central Jail, who either are imprisoned for crimes they have committed,were detained with their parents, or were born in jail, reportedly are involvedin woodcrafts and television repairs (see Section 6.c.).In 1996 the Government announced the results of its first comprehensive childlabor survey conducted with the assistance of the ILO’s International Program forthe Elimination of Child Labor (ILO-IPEC). According to the survey, 8.3 percent (orbetween 3.3 and 3.6 million) of children between the ages of 5 and 14 worked. Thechild labor force was predominately male (73 percent) and rural (71 percent). About60 percent of child labor in the country occurred in Punjab. Some 45.8 percent ofchild laborers worked 35 hours or more per week and 12.6 percent worked 56 hoursor more. The majority (67 percent) of child laborers worked in agriculture, forestry,hunting, and fishing industries; 11 percent in the manufacturing sector, 9 percentin wholesale and retail, and 8 percent in social and personal services. In occupationalterms, craft and related trade work accounted for about 19 percent of childlaborers, while 71 percent worked in unskilled jobs. Only the Government and exportersregard the ILO survey as an accurate measurement of the incidence of childlabor. Many observers believe that it understates the problem, and give higher estimatesof as many as 20 million child laborers. A 1997 survey by the Pakistan Instituteof Labor Education and Research indicated that in one-fourth of 187 Karachihouseholds, the eldest child worker (below the age of 14) provided more than 40 percentof household income. A recent ILO survey indicated that agriculture is the largestchild labor industry; followed by the informal sector, which includes domesticwork, street vending, illegal work, and family businesses; hazardous work, such asthe leather, surgical instruments, and brick kiln industries rank third. The reportalso noted that when programs are developed to eliminate child labor in one industry,parents often shift their children to work in other industries. A survey conductedby the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan published in June 1999 notedthat there are approximately 4,000 children working in auto workshops in theMardan district of the NWFP. The report stated that most of the children were betweenthe ages of 3 and 8. In a press conference in February, the president of thePunjab Laborers Front stated that 100,000 children between the ages of 5 and 12years were working in more than 4,500 brick kilns in Punjab. The ILO, the Ministryof Labor, and the Federal Bureau of Statistics was scheduled to conduct a new surveyin 2001 in over 30,000 households; this survey will include the agricultural sectorand rural areas where the worst forms of child labor often occur.Child labor, mostly female, is common in the carpet industry, much of which isfamily-run. Carpet manufacturers are working with ILO-IPEC to establish a programto eliminate child labor from the industry through monitoring and rehabilitation.Although surgical instrument manufacturers have acted to remove child laborersfrom their factories, child labor still occurs at rudimentary offsite filing andpolishing centers run by subcontractors for low-end items. Almost all children workingin the surgical instrument industry are male. According to the ILO and the PunjabWelfare Department, children constitute about 15 percent of the work force inthe surgical instrument industry in Sialkot; 7,500 of these children are estimatedto be under age 14. According to a June 1999 report issued by Public Services International,the average age of children in the surgical instrument industry is 12. Childrenin the surgical instrument industry are prone to injuries from machinery andburns from hot metal, as well as respiratory illnesses from inhaling poisonous metaldust. The successful efforts to eliminate child labor in other industries have notbeen mirrored in the surgical instrument industry. Child labor is not regarded asa particular problem in the textile and apparel industries, but no specific studiesof this sector have been performed. In October Fayyaz Ahmad, a child worker ina textile mill died as a result of injuries he sustained when his clothing became entangledin machinery.In 1997 soccer ball manufacturers, importers, the ILO, and UNICEF implementedan 18-month action plan (the Atlanta Agreement) to eliminate child labor from thesoccer ball industry. This project, based in Sialkot, monitored the production of soccerballs at newly established stitching centers, and set up as many as 185 rehabilitationcenters to educate former child laborers and their younger siblings. At year’send, there were 153 rehabilitation centers; however, an additional 70 centers areprojected for the next 2 years. The project also sought to identify unemployedadults, particularly women, from the families of former child stitchers to take upstitching work and replace lost income. Women initially were reluctant to move fromtheir homes to stitching centers, so the project began to establish small, home-basedstitching centers in individual villages; by year’s end, there were 358 home-basedVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:46 Sep 20, 2001 Jkt 071555 PO 00000 Frm 00166 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\COUNTRYR\S71555\71555.036 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1