Build an international movement against child labour

A 10-year-old domestic worker has been beaten and tortured to death and his younger brother badly injured after their masters caught them stealing fruit, police have said. 

As Ben Farmer reported, officers said the boys had been tortured for several days at their employers’ home in an upmarket neighbourhood of Lahore, Pakistan. The assaults are the latest to put the spotlight on the exploitation of child labour and young domestic servants in Pakistan. But the abuse of young domestic staff has made the news before. 

Two years ago, an eight-year-old child maid was allegedly beaten to death by her employers for releasing their prized parrots from a cage. Zohra Shah opened the cage to feed the birds, only for the birds to fly away. Her enraged employers at the home in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, were accused of beating her unconscious before dumping her at a nearby hospital. She died of her injuries. 

Back in December, Iraq’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the International Labour Organization kicked off a nation-wide campaign to tackle child labour in the country. 

The campaign, targeted over 10,000 children, their families and guardians, teachers, employers, and the media, and included awareness raising sessions in schools and districts where child labour is widespread and where school drop-outs are common. 

“In recent years, Iraq has witnessed an increase in child labour, including its worst forms, which has continued to interfere in children’s education, causing harm on many levels, including mental, physical and social,” said Maha Kattaa, ILO Country Coordinator in Iraq. 

“For the ILO, tackling the worst forms of child labour is a critical priority in Iraq and joining forces with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and social partners in this campaign will ensure that we spread awareness on the dangers and consequence of child labour in Iraq.” 

The United Nations last month warned that around the world, the disruption to schools caused by two years of Covid lockdowns had put more children at risk of being forced into child labour. The UN’s labour wing, the International Labour Organisation, estimated a decade ago, that more than 17 million children below the age of 18 were employed as maids, servants or as basic domestic help.