Parents and Child Labour: A Testimony from Automobile Workshops in Islamabad

Abstract

The present study was aimed to find out some measures of child labour in the capital of Pakistan (Islamabad). Study explored some parental factors like (socio-economic status, criminal tendency of parents, their physical health, parental pressure, age of the parents as well as social acceptance of the parents) related to child labour. Child labor was one of the oldest curses that still refused to fade away in our part of the world. The main objective of the study was to determine the characteristics of working children in automobile workshops and to bring out those associated factors leading to child labor in automobile workshops in Islamabad. For the said purpose, 250 working children were then purposively drawn and attributed with less than 18 years of age in the locality of Islamabad. The information was obtained from the respondents by using interview schedule as a tool for the present study. Children were facing many problems at work such as cuts and burns (48%), muscles pain (28%), eyes infection and different orthopedic injuries (10%) and (14%) respectively. Results showed that a negative correlation existed between the variables (child labour and socio-economic status, physical health of parents) while all other variables such as age of the parents, social acceptance, criminal tendency and parental pressures were positively correlated with the measure (child labour).