Pakistan’s ugliest reality has lastly come to gentle and it’s nothing wanting devastating. Whereas Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Military Chief Common Asim Munir wine and dine in Islamabad’s corridors of energy, a horrifying actuality looms in Sindh: 1.3 million youngsters, some as younger as 5, are trapped within the nightmare of modern-day slavery.
They work their tiny arms uncooked, their childhoods slipping away with each exhausting day.
This isn’t a distant tragedy. It’s Pakistan’s darkest secret, hidden in plain sight. For the primary time in three a long time, the Sindh Little one Labour Survey 2023–2024, carried out by the provincial Labour Division in collaboration with UNICEF, has laid naked a disaster so huge, so brutal, it shames your complete nation.
Two-Thirds Trapped in Fields of Distress
The numbers are soul-crushing. Out of 1.3 million baby labourers, practically 65 per cent, nearly two out of each three, are slaving away in Pakistan’s agricultural fields, beneath a scorching solar that burns by their youth.
One other 12.4 per cent work in manufacturing models, inhaling poisonous fumes and working lethal machines, whereas 10.8 per cent stand behind store counters when they need to be sitting behind faculty desks.
The survey reveals that one in ten youngsters in Sindh, aged 5 to 17, are in baby labour. Boys are hit hardest at 13.7 per cent, in comparison with 6.6 per cent for ladies. In some districts, the state of affairs is sort of apocalyptic. In Sujawal, 35 per cent of youngsters work, and in Tharparkar, one in 4. These locations have turn into graveyards of childhood.
Hazard, Loss of life, and Each day Despair
For half the working youngsters aged 10–17, the office itself is a risk to their lives. They carry crushing hundreds that bend their rising spines (29.8 per cent), labour in excessive warmth that may break grown males (28.1 per cent), and face bodily or verbal abuse (17.5 per cent). Nearly 44 per cent reported exhaustion or accidents, their small our bodies giving up earlier than they ever had the prospect to develop sturdy.
Schooling Destroyed, Futures Stolen
The toll on training is catastrophic. Solely 41.2 per cent of working youngsters go to highschool, in comparison with 69.9 per cent of those that don’t work. Amongst youngsters aged 14–17, that quantity falls to a stunning 29.1 per cent. Pakistan isn’t simply failing its youngsters, it’s dismantling their futures, one stolen faculty day at a time.
The Vicious Grip of Poverty
Behind each baby labourer is a household crushed by poverty. Almost 44 per cent of fogeys mentioned they ship their youngsters to work to help household earnings. Among the many poorest households, one in three has not less than one working baby.
Even households receiving assist beneath the Benazir Earnings Help Programme (BISP) have larger baby labour charges, proof that Pakistan’s welfare system is little greater than a merciless phantasm.
Elite Consolation, Kids’s Struggling
Sindh Labour Secretary Asadullah Ebro says the federal government will strengthen baby safety legal guidelines. However phrases imply nothing when 1.3 million youngsters are nonetheless in chains. Whereas Shehbaz Sharif entertains international dignitaries and Asim Munir showcases navy energy, the kids of Sindh toil in fields and factories, invisible, unvoiced, and forgotten.
A Nation’s Disgrace
Pakistan’s youngsters deserve lecture rooms crammed with laughter, not factories crammed with tears. They deserve the proper to play, not the burden to outlive. Till Pakistan’s leaders deal with this because the nationwide emergency it really is, the darkness will solely unfold.
That is Pakistan’s darkest secret. And now, the world is aware of.
(With IANS Inputs)