The Day Against Child Labour was observed in Pakistan and across the world on June 12, 2004. This was the third observance since the International Labour Organisation (ILO) started observing World Day Against Child Labour in 2002.

The theme of this year’s day was ‘domestic child labour’. Civil societies and human rights activists said despite the Pakistan government’s ratification in 2003 to ban child labour in 29 hazardous professions, the country has yet to made
this ratification a part of its statutes.

The ILO in collaboration with provincial governments conducted a survey to highlight 29 hazardous professions including tanneries, coal mining, manufacturing and sale of firework explosives, work at the compressed natural gas and liquid petroleum gas cylinders work, work on glass and metal furnaces, cloth printing dying and finishing sections and other
labours. According to the Employment of Children Act 1991, the government was empowered to declare any form of profession as hazardous and ban child labour.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), currently there are nine million child labourers in Pakistan, the number that rose from eight million driving the last year.

The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) Punjab coordinator Abdul Jalil Butt told Daily Times that unfortunately no survey was conducted to count child labourers after 1996. In 1996, the number of child labourers in Pakistan was 3.3 million, including 1.9 million in Punjab whereas 60 percent child labour was involved in the agriculture industry
in the country. He said the figures of domestic child labour, consisting of a number of small girls between 5 and 14 years old, were not available since 1947. He said the 1996 survey also skipped this form of child labour.