Pre-Production: Body Text Of My Feature Article Pages

So here I am back with another blog post. I am excited to tell you about the body body text of my feature articles. This might give you a glimpse of our magazine "SHATTERED" before it is officially published. The text starts from here:

The ILO defined the term “Child labor” as an activity that deprives the children of their childhood, their potential, and confidence. This kind of employment of children in any industry might affect the physical and mental growth of the child. ILO estimates that there are about 250 million economically active children all around the world. Child labor is also prevalent in developed economies but mostly present in developing and rural economies. If we consider Pakistan only, one in four households of Pakistan employs a child in domestic work. This is a huge amount of child labor. As a citizen of Pakistan, from my birth, I have also witnessed child labor present in our homes. Specially, in our household, we prefer a girl ranging from 8-10 years old for helping hand in our house chores such as dish washing, ironing, cleaning, and changing bed sheets. I witnessed this happening all around my surroundings. I used to go to shops of people, and mostly witness a child working in the shop, either to make his earning for bread and butter of his family or he is the son of the owner of the shop. Coming from wealthy family, I used to wonder about all this situation. Why are we studying in good schools and a child of same age as me is working to the limits of his body just to earn a small amount of money. Why he is not given education? Why a child’s rights are not considered? Why they are forced to do work which is meant to be done by adults only? Why they faces such a destiny? Why in the age of playing with football or cricket bat, they are handed heavy tools that they can hardly lift? Child labor is one of the most prominent issues in Pakistan, and people don’t even realize the intensity of this. Firstly, we will know about the causes of child labor in Pakistan. When a family could not afford the basic necessity of life such as food, there children are forced to put out in work. Another is, not having access to quality education, which means the school are not welcoming for the locals or are not affordable for the people living in rural areas. Today, the education is freely provided by government schools but another hindering factor is the loss of earning for a family if their child joins the school and not work on (for example, Farms) with his father. There is also limited understanding of child labor, as many believe that working is good for character building and skills development and they ignores the health, safety and wellbeing of the child. Early marriage is also a factor as couple remain fertile for a longer time, and they have many children with little or no resources to supports them. This forces them to child labor. This all leads to illiteracy for the child, and as the time passes by, the child will have no opportunities for there future and cannot even contribute to the gross domestic product of the country. Life will be tough for such a child. This kind of society have lost it’s way and cannot prosper in the future.

“A CHILD MUST KNOW HOW TO HOLD AN PENCIL, NOT AN AXE”

Child labor have harmful effects on the child and on the society as whole. If we talk about the harmful consequences it have on the society, than the first one is deprivation of education. A person who cannot read or write is the who struggles to know about his rights, find any work, put a vote, or even cannot secure his housing. These people are lonely as they feel shame, low esteem, and face problem like powerlessness.

Abdullah, the child on the vegetable shop is the son of the shop owner. He is accompanying his father from the age of 8 and now is 13 year old. He believes that a boy should be the helping hand of his father. He seems to be satisfied with his work as he is earning money from a young age.

Rahim, a child who works on a butchers shop. He is the only son of his family, and his father have passed away when he was 2 years old. He works because there is no one other to earn for the bread and butter of his family. He thinks that life makes him mature at a very younger age. Playing with toys or with his friends is not his domain. But he never wanted to work. His dream job was going into army but he faces his destiny.

This is Faisal, who have high ambitions to conquer his dreams of being a pilot in future. But he works with his father in a departmental store. Although, he is studying too, but he cannot achieve good grades due to the heavy workload. The parents of the child cannot realize the haphazard consequences it have. His parent thinks a child is a means of additional income and hire them because they are free and obedient for work. Such a parent is usually not rich and cannot provide the essential items like costumes, gloves, caps, and other tools for labor physical security. As a result, they get exposed to higher risk of getting injured, which can put there life on threat. Also, An individual like him can have health issues as he will be not aware of his personal hygiene due to lack of education. He will have a lack of saying as he might not have any skills or confidence to speak for his rights. According to International Monetary Fund’s report, it shows that uneducated people live between 4 and 14 years lesser than their well educated counterparts.

Abdul Rehman, a psychologist, share his experience about the impacts of child labor to the individual and we could learn many things from him. He states that children that works in factories and other places like that, are unable to maintain their emotional and psychological maturity. They might face mental illness and impacts like depression, and insecurity. These kids also get involved in child trafficking which is harmful for mental health. Child trafficking involves separating a child from his family. These child get victim to child abuse and emotional trauma. Such a child can never has his personal goal and have poor relationships with everyone because of the guilt and negative views, he possesses. This can have extreme consequences like suicides or getting involved with harmful chemicals such as cigarettes and alcohol.

Government can take action to find the solutions for child labor. A government can conduct survey in the country to identify the number of child labor and work to solve it. In , a survey was conducted in 1996 which identifies that there are almost 3.3 million child laborers. Government can focus on eradicating factors like poverty from the society as poverty is one the main contributors of child labor. Government can take actions to empower the poor people by giving them the sources of income and knowledge so that the child labor can be stopped in households. Parents than be literate and create a better society and would never promote child labor. Government can run awareness campaigns in rural areas about the importance of education for a child and aware them about the successful future prospect for an educated child. Government can initiate awareness by encouraging schools, religious group, nonprofit organizations, and other groups to take a step forward and help eradicate child labor. Government might also pass laws for the minimum age a worker can work. Also, charge heavy fines to employers who violates rules. Government can make education free for everyone so that a child have access to education easily. A parent might not put the excuse of poverty as the reason behind child labor. They should know that an educated individual have a brighter future in his life.

Give the children the opportunity to pick choices for their own life and explore the natural environment.

Iqbal, a philanthropist based in Lahore, discusses the issue in following words, “We are one of the unfortunate people. We have the third largest number of child laborer in our country. This is all because of the inefficiency of government. They are unable to fund departments and NGO’s that work for the global cause. The children are forced into labor and end up giving up their innocent phase of life.”

Child labor can be solved if we all come together, raise our voices, and let the masses know about this illegal activity. We can also take part by raising funds and raise our voice on individual level. We should support the non-profit organization by giving our services free of charge. We can also fund the food and education of children so that they do not need to worry about earning. We can also take help of our social media accounts to reach the wider and more global audience.Child labor is one of the most oldest issues. Children were being exploited from ages. Child Labor is not ethically and morally right. Factors like, bad governance, and little implementation of international policies are all contributing factors. Every child have the rights for safety, education and health. It is our duty now to give them the childhood, they always wanted to live.

“CHILDREN CANNOT CLIMB THE LADDER, IF WE TAKE AWAY THE LADDER”