Other Initiatives Against Child Labour in Pakistan
The ILO's Social Finance Department is undertaking a project titled Prevention of Family Indebtedness
with Micro Finance and Related Services, which aims to prevent freed peasants and other vulnerable
families in three districts of Sindh province from falling back into bondage, by reducing their economic
and social vulnerability through enabling provisions such as micro finance services, awareness raising,
group formation, education, and health services. The ILO's Declaration Department has offered additional
assistance to the Government of Pakistan in the eradication of bonded labour. With the support of the
ILO, the Ministry of Labour has completed rapid assessments of bonded labour in ten sectors. These
will be followed by detailed sector studies and a national survey to determine the incidence of bonded
labour. During 2003, the ILO initiated a longer term action for assistance to the Government of Pakistan,
including revision of the National Plan of Action, the need to seek broad public support, active solicitation
of donor agency funding for the ILO project, and immediate initiation of concrete steps to address the
problem.
Besides the ILO projects, there have been other initiatives addressing the child labour issues in Pakistan.
These initiatives have been supported by international organizations such as Save the Children UK, Save
the Children Sweden, CIDA, DFID and local NGOs. Two of the notable projects addressing child labour
issues are the multifaceted project on children working in the carpet industry managed by Thardeep
in Tharparkar district in Sindh, and the children resource centre for working children established by the
Sindh Education Foundation in Karachi.
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