New law needed to end child domestic labour

Rawalpindi : With incidents of torturing and even killing child domestic workers surfacing time and again a new set of laws is needed to end this kind of ‘slavery’ from the society.

The details of few incidents in which the child domestic workers were brutally tortured revealed that the parents handed over custody of these unlucky children to the owners for a specific period in return for desired money.

The investigation into the murder of 8-year-old Zohra Shah, a child domestic worker, revealed that her father had made a deal, for a sum of Rs50,000, with Hassan Siddique for Zohra to babysit their one-year-old infant, and was to get accommodation, food and clothing in return.

Minister for Human Rights Dr. Shireen Mazari took to Twitter and wrote that her ministry had been in touch with the police and was proposing reforms to domestic labor laws.

Adeeba Nasir, a lawyer, said the incidents of torture and murder of child domestic workers indicate moral decay of the society where these children are deprived of all their fundamental rights envisaged in the Constitution of Pakistan.

“There is a need to put an end to this discrimination, and to protect life, security and liberty of citizens even if they are servants,” she said.

She said in light of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions 138, 182 and 189 and the Constitution of Pakistan, handing over children to other people for domestic work in return for money should be declared a form of slavery and should immediately be banned all over the country.

Adeeba said ongoing coronavirus pandemic has worsened the situation for the child domestic workers as their relatives are often not allowed to come and meet them.