With the level of poverty the country faces, coupled with little education and high population, it is no surprise to find child labor prevalent and accepted in Pakistan. To see kids often employed by households to carry out the daily domestic chores, it is at times hard not too think about the moral reality of the situation.
I am sure no will dispute the fact that every child deserves a happy carefree childhood, good education and the beginnings of a life that could lead up to something. Child labor clearly goes against all that. The question whether educated people and the well-off should hire kids for domestic work is however a tricky one. On moral grounds alone I would feel uncomfortable hiring children to do work when they should be going to school just as we did as kids. However, such household employments might be better alternative to some other options exist of those kids.
Poverty is on such a rise that the extremely poor families (and such families are in abundance in Pakistan) have no choice but to send their kids to work as soon as they are old enough. Now work for these kids would often mean factories, workshops and hard physical labor. Needless to say, terrible working conditions. However, if the same kids get employed by households, they will have better working conditions, hopefully better care and money than workshops and factories offer. But working for such families, the kids would be forced to face the unfairness of life first-hand up so close and so early. They will be forced to see a lifestyle everyday that their own families cannot afford. To subject a child to that kind of despair and inequality so early in life is such a tragedy.
So what can the rich or affluent families in Pakistan do? Not hire children for domestic chores? But then they will be forcing those same kids to go work in horrible conditions. Give them money in charity? How many families can they give money to. No one family can save them all. Then what?
For the moment, perhaps a working solution could be to hire these children, but to make sure that these children get a good part school education on the employers money. Of course the best solution is for the government to step up, provide free public education with scholarships and stipends which will give poor parents incentive to send their children to school rather than for employment. But until the government steps in, individual households will have to deal with morally ambiguous problem of hiring child labor.
I am sure no will dispute the fact that every child deserves a happy carefree childhood, good education and the beginnings of a life that could lead up to something. Child labor clearly goes against all that. The question whether educated people and the well-off should hire kids for domestic work is however a tricky one. On moral grounds alone I would feel uncomfortable hiring children to do work when they should be going to school just as we did as kids. However, such household employments might be better alternative to some other options exist of those kids.
Poverty is on such a rise that the extremely poor families (and such families are in abundance in Pakistan) have no choice but to send their kids to work as soon as they are old enough. Now work for these kids would often mean factories, workshops and hard physical labor. Needless to say, terrible working conditions. However, if the same kids get employed by households, they will have better working conditions, hopefully better care and money than workshops and factories offer. But working for such families, the kids would be forced to face the unfairness of life first-hand up so close and so early. They will be forced to see a lifestyle everyday that their own families cannot afford. To subject a child to that kind of despair and inequality so early in life is such a tragedy.
So what can the rich or affluent families in Pakistan do? Not hire children for domestic chores? But then they will be forcing those same kids to go work in horrible conditions. Give them money in charity? How many families can they give money to. No one family can save them all. Then what?
For the moment, perhaps a working solution could be to hire these children, but to make sure that these children get a good part school education on the employers money. Of course the best solution is for the government to step up, provide free public education with scholarships and stipends which will give poor parents incentive to send their children to school rather than for employment. But until the government steps in, individual households will have to deal with morally ambiguous problem of hiring child labor.
No comments:
Post a Comment