Tag: child labour

  • 12-year-old maid ‘starved, tortured to death’ by employer in Lahore: police

    12-year-old maid ‘starved, tortured to death’ by employer in Lahore: police

    A 12-year-old maid, who was found dead last week, was starved for days and tortured to death by her employers, said police on Thursday.

    According to Samaa, the child employed by a family in Iqbal Town, Lahore, was assaulted multiple times over a period of two months. She was starved for long hours, revealed her post-mortem report.

    “The report disclosed that she was not raped,” the investigation officer was quoted as saying. The police have arrested the employer, Saira Bano who confessed to the crime during questioning, it added.

    “Bano said that her sister-in-law Nasreen was also involved,” the officer was quoted by the media outlet. The police are conducting raids to arrest her as soon as possible, it added.

    On Jan 30, the father of the deceased minor approached the police with a complaint that her daughter was “killed and raped” by the employers who had hired her services as a maid.

    The media report said that her father, a resident of Sheikhupura, said that on January 27 they received a call from her employer Bano.

    Bano told them that their daughter wasn’t feeling well. “When we reached there, my daughter was unconscious,” he said, adding that the child was immediately moved to a hospital where the doctor pronounced her dead.

    A case has been registered under sections 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 302 (murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

  • Caged children

    Caged children

    The year is 2020. We have rules. We have laws. Yet we have children who live in cages — who are enslaved. The news of a minor domestic worker’s death after being beaten and tortured by her employers for letting “expensive pet parrots escape from their cage” sent chills down everyone’s spine. It also made one’s blood boil over the callousness of the employers who had employed an eight-year-old girl at their house to ‘take care’ of their infant. And then they killed her over a small mistake. Is the cost of a poor minor ‘housemaid’ worth nothing compared to pet parrots no matter how ‘expensive’ they may be?

    Zohra Shah’s employers – who were arrested soon afterwards – did not just kill the child but also recorded the girl being tortured on cell phones recovered by the authorities. One video reportedly shows the minor girl locked up in a large birdcage as a form of punishment. Did the couple think locking up a child in a cage was okay at some level? Are we human beings or barbarians?

    It shows another side of our society as well: we all know someone who has employed minors at their homes. We usually turn a blind eye to this ‘slavery’ because they are not our own children. They are children of the poor – people who have no choice but to let their children work for strangers just so they can make ends meet. Even if we don’t condone such practices, we don’t condemn them either – at least not vocally. We outrage at the latest incident of a minor domestic worker but soon we will forget her name. Until the next incident. And the cycle continues.

    Minister for Human Rights Dr Shireen Mazari says that domestic child labour should be declared hazardous under the Employment of Children Act 1991, as this is “the quickest way to protect children in the absence of a proper law to protect domestic labour”. This is a short-term solution. We need proper child labour reforms. Declaring domestic child labour ‘hazardous occupation’ may help to some extent but when the law already says that children under 14 years of age cannot be employed and we see children younger than that working around us, how will it benefit the children? How will it ensure that children are not losing their childhood because the state failed to ensure their rights?

    Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but children from lower-income groups have no rights whatsoever it seems. The impunity with which Zohra Shah was tortured and subsequently killed by her employers shows that the rich and powerful think they can get away with anything, even if it’s taking away someone’s life. How will we ensure justice for an eight-year-old girl who was born to a family so poor that they did not have the money for an ambulance that could take the body back to their village and to arrange a funeral?

    ‘Justice for Zohra’ does not mean punishing the couple who beat her to a pulp, subsequently leading to her death, but it means that we make sure there are no more Zohras in Pakistan. That we make sure an end to the practice of minors being employed in private households, that we ensure children get their basic right to education and do not lose their childhoods enslaved in cages, both literally and metaphorically.

  • Osman Khalid Butt is demanding a ban on child domestic labour

    Osman Khalid Butt is demanding a ban on child domestic labour

    The brutal torture and murder of an eight-year-old child maid in Rawalpindi has sent waves of horror across the entire country. While many celebrities have raised their voice for Zohra, Osman Khalid Butt is demanding the government to abolish child labour.

    Read more – Murdered minor housemaid’s torture was recorded on cell phones

    Sharing a list of laws which apply on child labour and explaining their shortcomings, Butt said, “If we want change beyond #JusticeforZohra, we need to raise our collective voice to amend our child labour laws.”

    Butt asserted that we cannot let another case just go by and should continue to raise voice until the laws are amended to protect the rights of children. He also encouraged people not to employ children as domestic help and “speak out if members of you family/friends have”.

    “Can’t stress enough that until child labor laws are amended and implemented, we won’t see change,” concluded Butt.

    When a user commented that “families livelihood depends” on child labour, Butt responded that a better way to help is by sending a child to school.

    Mahira Khan, who had earlier condemned the brutal murder of Zohra, endorsed Butt’s point of view.

    Meanwhile, among those who raised their voice for Zohra include Momina Mustehsan, Maya Ali and Ushna Shah.

    THE INCIDENT

    Eight-year-old child maid Zohra Shah was allegedly beaten to death by her employers for releasing their prized parrots from a cage. According to reports, she opened the cage to feed the birds on Sunday, only for the birds to fly away. This enraged her employers who then beat her unconscious before dumping her at a nearby hospital. She died of her injuries.

    According to the first information report (FIR), the victim was alive when she was brought to the hospital. She had injuries on her face, hands, below her rib cage and legs. The FIR stated that she also had wounds on her thighs which suggested that she might have been sexually assaulted. Police have sent samples for forensic examination to confirm if an assault took place and are yet to receive a report.

    The couple behind the heinous crime has been arrested.