‘Children up to 14 years are not allowed to be employed’

Sindh Minister for Labour and Human Resources Ghulam Murtaza Baloch has said that labour laws enforced in the province prohibits the employment of children up to the age 0f 14.

While talking to various delegations at his office on Friday, he cited the Sindh Factories Act, 2015 and Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children Act, 2017, and said that both the laws prohibited the employment of children in the province.

Baloch said that the two laws were enforced to deal with the issue of child labour, and said that as per the Sindh Prohibition of Employment of Children Act, 2017, child labour in the agriculture sector of the province was also prohibited.

As per the provisions of the Sindh Factories Act, 2015, adolescent workers were not allowed to work in hazardous working conditions. He assured the delegations that labour law violation was being dealt with sternly, adding the provincial labour department had taken many initiatives to provide welfare facilities to mine workers and their families, including provision of free of charge education, school bags, uniforms, shoes and course books. Dispensaries in Sukkur and Khairpur districts would be upgraded to 10-bedded hospitals for mines workers.

The provincial labour minister said that online registration of employers had been started through the Sindh Business Registration Portal to benefit the cause of the welfare of the labourers.

He said that rehabilitation of the Sindh Employees’ Social Security Institution hospitals and dispensaries was underway and the labour department was also ensuring provision of medicines from reputed pharmaceutical companies to provide better health care facilities to workers and their dependents.