Giving jobs to innocent minor boys and girls has become a regular business. It is a mafia that is involved in carrying on this brutal business for the sake of few bucks. But the main role in this cruelty is the parents who bring their innocent children from their homes and entrust them to this mafia so that they can continue to get a few rupees every month. What happens to these innocents is of no concern to these oppressors. When no parent feels sorry for their innocent children, why should anyone else?

Most of such parents belong to South and some from Central Punjab. The position of such cruel parents is that they are very poor. Can't even feed the children bread. They themselves are often unemployed, so they get jobs from children in people's homes. Where the children get bread to fill their stomachs and the parents get some money every month, which helps them manage their livelihood. What a ridiculous and illogical argument this is.

According to available statistics, an estimated 3.3 million child workers are  engaged in various sectors including domestic work in our country which not only  deprives them of their previous childhood festivities but also deprive them of  education as well. Moreover they are given meager salaries which do not match their services while they are made to work more industriously as compared to adult workers.

If the population is controlled, the country, the nation and the individual can avoid many economic problems. If this situation continues, according to experts, in the coming years, unemployment, economic problems, unrest and lack of health facilities will increase in such a way that no one can control it.

We control the population. By not doing so, they themselves are increasing the number of uneducated and criminal or criminal minded. One of our tragedies is that we never admit any of our mistakes but try to resort to silly arguments for it. Many blame the government for solving the problems it creates.

For example, unemployment, inflation, lack of health facilities, lack of education and even lack of sanitation and clean drinking water and blockage of drainage in cities and cleaning of drains are the responsibility of the government but the unbridled population growth is also a burden on the meagre resources.

As important as population control is, governments and people are oblivious to this fundamental problem. Some people take the guise of poverty and hand over their innocent children, who are between 8 to 15 years of age, who are at the age of studying, writing and playing, from their homes and hand them over to this mafia. This mafia has set up an office to earn bread from this cruel business. These offices are regularly advertised and homes requiring a maid contact these offices and then the child is handed over to them. The owners of such houses do not think that this is a great injustice to this innocent. Every day news of cruelty and violence against these innocent laborers are coming on newspapers and TV channels.

 This mafia has a regular network. In the areas of South and Central Punjab, there are agents involved in this crime who are contacted by the parents, then these agents are in contact with various mafia offices and they would bring these children and hand them over to this mafia and receive their commission.

Time has come that the full-fledged Child Protection Bureau which was established for providing protection to such children, should come into action and leads a campaign against the victimization of the children in our society. One thinks that if the Bureau leads such a campaign, the voices of dissent will become stronger and will create an impact to sensitize on the child labour issue.

There has been an alarming increase in torture cases of minor domestic workers, particularly in Punjab province, which is leading on the list of such gruesome incidents.

One would request the public to immediately report to the local authorities if any they see a young ones working in or outside someone's home are being abused, tortured and deprived of basic needs of life including the right to education and play.

If everyone of us raise our voice against such things, only then will our voice reach where it is necessary to reach and then those people also take action on such incidents of exploitation and abuse of children.

The problem is that often no one knows if a child is being kept as a domestic servant or slave, and it is not easy to know whether the child is well or not. Is he being educated?

Time has come to raise our voices against the increasing gruesome incidents of torture and violence against innocent child workers across the country. In recent years, it is mainly the domestic workers who are being tortured and even killed with impunity.

There is not a single case in which a strong and exemplary punishment has been handed over to the perpetrators of the crime.

Few months back, the. brother-sister duo who were working as domestic workers were critically injured in Lahore by their employers. The boy along with his younger brother was engaged as a domestic worker in Lahore and the duo was critically injured by their employers over petty mistakes due to which one of the boys succumbed to his injuries. Question arises in mind as to if the lives of these innocent minor children do not matter to stand up and take a stand for them to fight against violence against children and their abuse by the adults in the society. In fact, violence has become endemic in our society and time is not far off when it will turn into a pandemic as we are witness to alarming rise in such cases. In fact, torturing and killing women, minors and less privileged has become normal practice in our society where the exploitation of the poor, the less privileged and weaker sections of the society knows no bounds. There is a lot of outcry against such cases on the social media where we come across the hashtags but the fact remains that such cases will continue to emerge if the perpetrators are not given exemplary punishments. It is not that laws do not exist. There are number of laws like Punjab Domestic Workers Act and the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and The Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act 2004 do provide cover to child workers but the irony is the lack of implementation of these laws.

Published in The Daily National Courier, October, 04 2023

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