Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) Chairperson Sarah Ahmad has announced launching a social media campaign against child employers, under the title of Social Boycott of Child Employers.
In a talk to media on Sunday, she emphasised the need to take a firm stand against those who employ children as domestic help, saying that the objective of the campaign was to liberate children from domestic labour and ensure a reduction in child exploitation among domestic helpers.
The CPWB chairperson said that so for 25 child protection units had been established in various districts of the Punjab province.
She said the CPWB was committed to further extending the scope of its services to all districts, and ensuring effective protection of child rights across the province. She said that construction of the newly inaugurated building at Kasur had been started in November 2021 at Kutchehry Road, while the child protection office had been operating in Kasur since 2019. She expressed her gratitude to the Punjab chief secretary, additional chief secretary (ACS) Home and the line departments for their cooperation in the endeavour.
Ms Munawar Sultana, National Project Coordinator, Asia Regional Child Labour (ARCL) project, recently said that around 160 million children aged 5 to 17 years were engaged in child labour in 2020, with 79 million children involved in hazardous work.
About 3.3 million of Pakistani children are trapped in child labour, who are deprived of their childhood, their health and education, she said. Meanwhile, the Government of Pakistan, through the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), has so far enrolled 11.8 million children in schools under the Benazir Taleemi Wazaif initiative, a document of BISP reveals.
