‘Sindh has no credible data on child labourers in factories’

The Sindh government does not possess any credible statistics regarding child labourers working in factories and industries of the province and is currently conducting a survey to collect the data, the Sindh Assembly was told on Friday.

While responding to queries from lawmakers regarding the labour department, Minister for Information and Labour Syed Nasir Hussain Shah informed the house during the assembly’s question hour that a survey was being conducted in collaboration with United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund to ascertain the number of children working in the province’s industries.

According to him, the survey was launched in 2016 and would be completed within three years.

The minister further said that a similar survey had been initiated in Jamshoro earlier, making it a model district to find out the number of child labourers in the district’s factories. 

What the dept has been up to  Moreover, the lawmakers were informed that a total of 6,639 factories were operational in Karachi and Hyderabad, while 421,518 regularised employees and 228,201 contractual staffers are associated with them. 

The labour minister further said that 3,397 factories were non-operational – more than 3,000 of them in Karachi alone. He added that the Sindh Board of Investment would provide assistance in case any effort was made to restart functioning of the closed factories in the region. 

Shah also told the house that no new hospital had been established by Sindh government’s labour department during financial year 2015-16, while the Labour Colony in Thatta, which had been established in 2000, has been provided facilities and labourers have started living there.

The house was also told that even though the Sindh government has set Rs15,000 as the minimum monthly wage for labourers, it was still receiving complaints that that certain factory owners were not paying it to their labourers. Shah informed that the non-compliers have been warned of action if they continued to flout the government’s directives.

Prisons minister clears the air Meanwhile, Minister for Law and Prisons Ziaul Hassan Lanjar informed the house that reports which appeared in the media regarding four women inmates of Larkana Jail becoming pregnant while in jail were false. 

Responding to a call to attention notice by opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-Functional’s (PML-F) lawmaker Nusrat Seher Abbasi, Lanjar said that the media should show responsibility and due caution while reporting on such matters.

The prisons minister said that medical examinations are conducted on mandatory basis before admitting any new female inmates.

Lately, three new prisoners were sent to Larkana jail who had become pregnant before they arrived to the jail. Two of them have had their deliveries and the mothers and babies were doing fine, he claimed.

Lanjar advised the concerned lawmakers in the house to conduct an investigation on their own before raising “such untruthful matters in the house”.

Moreover, responding to a call to attention notice by MPA Sabir Hussain Qaimkhani of the Muttahida Quami Movement, Education Minister Jam Mehtab Hussain Dahar said that his department had been reconstructing government-run schools in the province under 45 different development schemes and the reconstruction of some of these buildings has been completed.

He said that the PC-1 for the rebuilding project had to be prepared again because the financial requirements for it had increased due to a delay in implementation. Funds for reconstructing the school buildings would soon be released as work to this effect would be completed in the current financial year after approval of the PC-1, he added.

Silence for Dina Wadia

The house also observed a one-minute silence to condole the death of Dina Wadia, the daughter of founder Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who passed away in New York on Thursday at the age of 98. 

PML-F’s lawmaker Nusrat Seher Abbasi also requested the chair of the house to offer prayers for the protection of the life and employment of Sindh Information Department’s official Zeenat Jahan on whose complaint the corruption reference against former Sindh information minister Sharjeel Memon and other co-accused had been filed.

On the other hand, opposition party MQM’s Sabir Hussain Qaimkhani asked the chair to offer prayers to end the menace of financial corruption in the province.

The session was adjourned till November 6 (Monday).