EVERY year on 12 June, the world observes the World Day Against Child Labour a call to conscience for governments, civil society, businesses and citizens to uphold every child’s right to childhood, education and protection from exploitation. This year’s theme, “Red Card to Child Labour: Fair Play for Children, Decent Work for Adults,” underscores a simple truth: until adults have access to decent work and social protection, too many children will be forced into work that steals their childhood and jeopardizes their futures.
Globally, the latest estimates show that at least 138 million children are still engaged in child labour. Millions of girls and boys denied education, play, safety and dignity. Of these, roughly 54 million are in hazardous work that threatens their health and development. While this figure represents a remarkable reduction from the near 246 million children in such circumstances at the start of the century, it also reflects the world’s failure to meet the global target to eliminate child labour by 2025. At the current pace, progress would need to accelerate more than eleven fold to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on child labour.
Child labour is most prevalent in agriculture, followed by services and industry, driven by poverty, lack of social protection, limited access to quality education, conflicts, climate shocks and weak enforcement of labour laws.
Pakistan mirrors this global challenge in deeply concerning ways. National estimates indicate that approximately 13–14 percent of children aged 10 to 17 are engaged in child labour, amounting to millions of boys and girls working in agriculture, brick kilns, domestic labour, workshops, manufacturing units, markets and other informal sectors.
Many of these children are exposed to long hours, unsafe conditions, physical abuse and the permanent loss of educational opportunities, trapping families in intergenerational cycles of poverty. While Pakistan has ratified key international conventions and enacted laws to prohibit child labour, gaps in implementation, outdated data, insufficient labour inspections and limited social safety nets continue to undermine meaningful progress. Child labour is not simply an economic coping mechanism; it is a violation of children’s rights that robs them of education, damages their physical and mental well-being and weakens the country’s future human capital.
The economic cost of child labour is immense, as children denied schooling are less likely to become skilled, productive adults, constraining national growth and development. Ending child labour therefore requires more than symbolic commitments; it demands sustained investment in universal social protection, free and quality education, decent work and fair wages for adults, strong enforcement of labour laws, corporate accountability across supply chains and reliable, up to date data to inform policy.
On this World Day Against Child Labour, Pakistan and the global community must show the courage to issue a decisive red card not just in words, but through concrete action because children belong in classrooms and playgrounds, not in workplaces and protecting them today is essential to securing a just, prosperous and humane future for all.
—The writer is Programme Manager, Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, SPARC, Islamabad.
