A debate on child labor was still going on when another debate of physically abusive child labor came into the mainstream. An incident took place in Faisalabad, a city of Punjab Pakistan, where a horrific CCTV footage went viral in which a little girl was seen brutally beaten up in the street of Eden valley housing scheme by a teenager, the president of Eden valley housing society Rana Munir and Samina Munir. The little girl was later identified as 11 years old Sadaf who was working as maid in the house and had a minor fight with the children related to Munir.
Sadaf Manzoor with SHO Aftab
The case was registered on the complaint of Samina Nadar, Child Protection Officer of the Faisalabad Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CP&WB) under sections 34 and 328-A of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
The culprits were later detained by the police of Madina town and court proceedings are in process. Samina Munir although, has repudiated her presence in the video saying that the woman in the video is someone else. At one occasion she also threatened media for giving hype to this issue and said that she will take her revenge.
Sadaf, the victim has been sent to the child protection bureau for her medical as instructed by the court.
According to the statistical data quoted in an article published by unite for sight organisation, an estimated 6 million work-related injuries occur among children annually, which results in 2.5 million disabilities and 32,000 fatalities every year.
In 2019, Pakistan made a moderate advancement in efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labor. Punjab Province adopted the Punjab Domestic Workers Act of 2019, which prohibits children under age 15 from working in any domestic service capacity. But in spite of the legislations, we cannot see effective implementation resulting in heinous crimes similar to what happened to Sadaf.
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