President reaffirms Pakistan’s resolve to eradicate child labour

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi Sunday said that Pakistan was committed to its international obligations towards the prevention of child labour in all its forms and manifestations. “World Day against Child Labour is observed all over the world to raise awareness for the prevention of child labour, encourage stakeholders to speak against this social evil and re-affirms our resolve to end child labour in all its forms and manifestations,” the president said in a message on the observance of the day across the globe on June 12.

The president said that child labour was a growing curse in the world, particularly the developing countries and Pakistan was the victim of this growing global phenomenon.

The president said Article 11 (3) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan guaranteed that “no child below the age of fourteen years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment. Furthermore, the federal and provincial laws forbade child labour, however, implementation of these laws needed to be strengthened at all levels, the president said, adding “The entire nation needs to stand together to fight this evil.”

The child labour, President Alvi said, deprived children from receiving basic education and access to health facilities. It exposed them to harmful and hazardous environments and clipped their basic rights to life and liberty, he added.

The president further observed that the child labour was harmful to the physical and mental development of the children, compromised their dignity, prevented them from going to schooling, subjected them to excessively long and heavy work and in the worst-case scenario subjected them to slavery and separation from their families, he noted.

“The children illegally working in different jobs, in factories, enterprises, agriculture and homes are deprived of their childhood which they deserve and are subjected to worse working conditions,” he observed.The president underlined that every child has a right to get the education and better health and stressed upon the need to ensure that their children were also provided a safe and secure environment around them.

“We can do so by strengthening capacity of the regulators to address the issue of child and bonded labour. The launch of effective and determined awareness campaign to sensitize the society on harmful effects of child labour is one important element to fight the menace of child labour,” the president said.

The president also emphasised that supporting of the federal and provincial authorities to enhance their capacities on data collection and analysis, promoting inter-agency cooperation and sharing knowledge and effective advocacy should also be pursued to counter this menace. Meanwhile to another official statement, President Dr Arif Alvi expressed his serious concerns over increasing incidents of forest fires in different parts of the country.

The president said that such fire incidents were causing huge financial loss to the nation as it deprived the effectees of their livelihood, put the life and properties of the inhabitants at high risk, destroyed local fauna and flora, besides worsened the negative effects of the climate change.

The president advised the authorities concerned to refocus on the prevention of wildfire strategies by strengthening coordination among themselves.

He also called upon making of investments in fire suppression and prevention mechanisms, implementing of the existing fire management techniques by improving wildfire data collection and analysis and strengthening of stakeholders’ coordination and preparedness.

The president observed that most of the forest fire incidents were preventable as 85 percent were caused when the campfires and burning debris had been left unattended.

The use of the equipment and its malfunctions, carelessly discarded cigarettes while intentional acts of arson were some of the other causes, he added

He said these incidents could be prevented by taking simple precautions including reporting of unattended fires to the authorities, and extinguishing fire pits and campfires when done.

Moreover, the ignited cigarettes should not be thrown out of the moving vehicles whereas caution be taken when using flammable liquids or fireworks, he advised.

The president further said that regrettably, the wildfire disturbed flora and fauna, eliminated wild animals, destroyed the habitats of birds and harmed the fertility of the soil which hampered the growth and composition of vegetation, besides increasing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, resulting in the emission of greenhouse gases.