Karachi: Over 1.6 million children are engaged in child labour in Pakistan’s Sindh province, a senior official said on Sunday, citing a recent survey.

Child labour remains a major menace in the country despite efforts by the government to update and institute laws to protect children aged between 5 and 17, said Sindh Director General of Labour Syed Muhammad Murtaza Ali Shah.

A survey conducted by his department in July-August with the technical assistance of UNICEF and the Bureau of Statistics revealed that over 1.6 million (10.3 per cent of children aged 5–17) were engaged in child labour in the province.

“The other provinces are also now carrying out fresh surveys on child labour but in Sindh we found that as many as 800,000 children (50.4 per cent of those aged 10–17) are working in hazardous and exploitative conditions, which include excessive hours, extreme weather, and unsafe tools in agriculture and industrial sectors,” Shah said.

The survey also showed that only 40.6 per cent of working children attend school, compared to 70.5 per cent of non-working children.

The Qambar Shahdadkot district had the highest prevalence of child labour of 30.8 per cent, followed by Tharparkar at 29 per cent, Tando Muhammad Khan at 20.3 per cent, and Shikarpur at 20.2 per cent. Karachi has the lowest rate, at just 2.38 per cent.

Shah said that the provincial government was working on updating laws, increasing projects to educate people about the illegalities of child labour and even conducting raids at workplaces to protect children.

He added that Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had also set up a special task force to mitigate and eliminate the menace.

According to the survey, child labour had declined by nearly 50 per cent since 1996, when the percentage was 20.6, he said.

Shah said the government had launched social protection schemes to support poverty-ridden families.

However, activists working to protect vulnerable children say more action is required to change the environment.

The Society for the Protection of Rights of Child (SPARC) which has been advocating for stricter laws against child labour said that poverty, big families and a lack of empathy for children’s rights are the main reasons for the high percentage of child labour in the country.

Nazra Jahan, a SPARC protection officer, said that in the poorest households, 33.7 per cent reported had at least one child engaged in work.

She said that many of these vulnerable households living in poverty were forced to send children to work to survive.

“Until and unless more jobs are created, there is greater access to education for underprivileged children, at least technical education and poverty reduction, it is an uphill battle against child labour.”