Child labor is a multifaceted phenomenon existing in developed, developing and poor countries alike. ‘Child labor’ formerly applied to the practice of employing young children in factories, now used to denote the employment of minors generally, especially in work that may interfere with their education or endanger their health. . P.N Pati has defined Child labor as "labor that involve children under the age of 15 years in work or employment with the aim of earning a livelihood for themselves or for their families." Homor Fold defines the term as any work by children that interfere with their full physical development opportunities for a desirable minimum level of education or their needed recreation. Through out the ages and in all cultures children joined their parents to work in the fields, in the marketplace, and around the home as soon as they were old enough to perform simple tasks. The use of child work was not regarded a social problem (child labor) until the introduction of the factory system. Children do small errands at home and out side. But there is clear difference between such work and child labor. Work by children is essential for training and disciplining, but if work interferes with a child’s growth and development or posses threat to his health and safety or deprives him of rest and recreation, then it is certainly "Child Labor", which can not be justified on any pretext.

In early 21^st century, child labor remains a serious problem in many parts of the world. Studies carried out in 1979, the International Year of Child, show that more than 50 million children below the age of 15 were working in various jobs often under hazardous conditions. Many of these children live in underdeveloped countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Their living conditions are crude and their chances for education are minimal. The meager income they bring in, however is necessary for the survival of their families. Child labor is not, of course, limited to developing nations. It also occurs wherever poverty exists in Europe and the United States. The most important efforts to eliminate child labor abuses throughout the world come from the International Labor Organization founded in 1919 and now a special agency of United Nations. The organization has introduced several child-labor conventions among its members; including a minimum age of 16 years for admission to all work, a higher minimum age for specific types of employment, compulsory medical examinations, and regulation of night work.

Children do not opt for labor on their own will. Rather certain factors force them to shoulder the burden of livelihood much before attaining adulthood. The causes of child labor vary from case to case and one area to another. Of all the causes, poverty is considered to be the most powerful driving force and people belonging to the socio-economic sectors opine. This holds true in Pakistan, as well. A survey carried out by the Institute of Social Research and Development, published in the Daily Dawn revealed that almost 50% of parents stated that poverty was the main reason for sending children to work. Other causes may include unemployment, absence of social security and non-availability of educational facilities. In Pakistan according to a Child Labor Survey conducted by Federal Bureau of Statistics for the Ministry of Labor in 1996, about 3.6 million children are engaged in labor in Pakistan.

NGOs can play vital role in any program designed for the welfare of working child. NGOs role in planning and implementing activities in protecting working children is crucial for the success of any program designed for safeguarding their rights. Any program designed to protect working children must first of all help in identifying forces and activities which shape children’s lives. This should begin from the basic family unit through different institutions of society. For the NGOs the fight against child labor means that they must engage in direct action, first and foremost, and to tackle the problem and protect those children who are already working. The next priority is to rehabilitate those who have been salvaged from the hazardous market place. If this action is to be successful in the long term, NGOs must be facilitated to setup organizational structure within their own system which would help in the sustainability of the program.

This report is about the preliminary information about the children working in Automobile Workshops in the Municipality of Mingawara city, District Swat. The report determines the need of the education requirements of such children and discovers ways and means of educating such children. In addition, some correlation are also done to see why the children work and what types of children work in the workshops.

2. LAWS AGAINST CHILD LABOR

There are a number of binding constitutional, legal and international instruments against child labor. These are given below.

• Article 32 of UN convention on the Right of the Child says, "States parties recognize the Rights of the Children to be protected from economic exploitation and for performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education or harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development". Pakistan has ratified the convention.
• Pakistan is also a signatory to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1948, which calls for the protection of child rights.
• Article 11 of Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan says that, "No child below the age of 14 shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment".
• The Employment of Children Act 1991 makes it illegal to employ children (upto 14 years) in specific occupations including workshops. Under this act no child is permitted to work for more than 7 hours including one-hour interval for rest. Also the child is neither permitted to work overtime nor is the child required to work between the hours of 7.00 p.m. and 8.a.m. in any case whatsoever. This Act also provides for necessary penalties for contravention of the various provision of an Enactment. These penalties include imprisonment, as well as fine, for those responsible for taking work from the children, or for employing them, in contravention of the provision of this Law.
• The Factories Act 1934 says that, a young child present in a factory is presumed to be working there. The Act prohibits children under 14 to work in any factory. Children between 14 and 15 and adolescents (between 15 and 18 years) are only allowed to work in a factory when they have been examined with a certificate of fitness.

Despite all the above laws, a very large number of children are forced to involve in labor. According to independent estimates 10 million children are involved in child labor. This estimate is quite higher than the official estimates of 3.6 million

3. METHODOLOGY

A survey was conducted about working children and adults in automobile workshops in Municipality area of Mingawara city. A questionnaire containing questions on the names of workshop, child and his father, residence and the area where the workshop is situated; information about the age of the child, educational status, father status whether living or dead, family size and reasons for work were also included. Two volunteers started the survey in May 2000. One of the volunteers left the survey by joining a job. In August an intern continued the survey. All except a few scattered workshops situated within the limits of the Municipal committee of Mingawara were surveyed. All the workers in the workshops surveyed were interviewed except those who were on leave the day of the surveyor's visit. Exact age was recorded in the questionnaire but age of children was divided into three categories i.e., those who are up to nine years of age, those who are above nine up to fifteen years of age and those who are above fifteen years of age. The reasons for work in the workshop were categorized into; Poverty, Training and Poverty/Training.

The data was analyzed through computer software SPSS version 7.5.

4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A total of 215 workshops were surveyed in which 628 children and adults were interviewed. The workshops were situated on G.T. Road, in Kas, Makanbagh, Mula Baba, Rahimabad and Shadara. The frequency of the working children is the highest in Shadara, Kas and G.T. Road in descending order (Table 1) while the frequency of children working in the other areas is low with the lowest number in Makanbagh where there are only two workshops.  

The number of children working in each workshop varied considerably (1-23 children) with most of the workshops having 1-4 working children

(Table 2 in appendix) while the number of workshops having 5 -7 children is twenty-two. Only one workshop each has 10, 11 and 23 working children.

Age of the working children

The percent frequencies of children who are up to nine years of age, those who are up to fifteen years of age and those who are above fifteen years of age are 2.1, 62.3, and 35.6%, respectively. The total number of children up to fifteen years of age comes out to be 393 (64.4%) while the rest of the children are above fifteen years of age. Those who are above fifteen years of age have an overwhelming number of children below eighteen years of age (Table 3). This shows that the number of children up to fifteen years of age working in the workshops is significantly higher than those who are above fifteen years of age.

The Relationship of Family Size

The family size of the working children ranges from 3 to 45 members. Eight members families are the most frequent. Next are 10, 7, 9, 6 and 11 family sizes. The frequencies of 5 and below family size and twelve and above family size are less frequent (Table 4). The family size coincides with family size of the general population (Census data 1998). The percent frequencies for reason for work were 65.3, 18.2 and 16.4, respectively for poverty/training, poverty alone and training alone (Table 5). It is not the family size but poverty of the families that compel the child workers to work.

Schooling of the Working Children

Those who never attended a school were 19.1%. The percent frequency of those who never completed primary education is 57.5% only 19% completed primary education, 7.4% are middle, 3.2% are matriculate while 0.5% have studied in colleges (Table 6). A total of 12.7% are still continuing education at different levels. Out of the 78 (12.3%) child workers continuing education 29.4% are studying at primary level, 46.1% middle level, 23% in high level and 1.2% (1 person) at intermediate level (Table 7).

The relationship of Children residence

The children come to the workshop from 110 locations both in the Municipality and outside the municipality. Fifty-one locations are within the limits of the municipality while the rest are from other areas of Swat. Except twenty-four locations the rest of the locations are within a radius of 10km of the workshops in the city. This same table shows that most of the children who work in the Automobile Workshops are from the urban and suburban areas while very less children come from the rural areas more than 10km away. This is mainly because of the daily traveling involved.

Other Correlation

Comparison of the percent frequencies of the reason for work with the categories of dead or living father (Table 8) shows that the life or death of the father do not influence the reason for work.

The categories of family size are large and no correlation could be established with education of children and life or death of father. Similarly family size, reason for work, and age of children, family size and education, education and reason for work and education of the worker and age of the worker do not give clear picture of the correlation because of the many categories in the family size and education.

5. CONCLUSION

Results of the survey show that the literacy rate as well as the education at certain levels is far less among the children working in the automobile workshops as compared to the literacy and education at those levels in the city of Mingawara. Non-formal basic education for working children means more than being able to write their names. The need for basic education should be to satisfying other requirements such as to be able to identify their aptitude, their character traits as well as to raise children self esteem. The objectives of NGOs engaged in providing basic education to working children should be to create options for the working child in terms of rehabilitation and development; as well as to create an environment in the public and private sector where policy options can be debated for bringing about policy change and consolidation of the existing programs within the existing framework.