PESHAWAR: Poverty, unemployment and continuously rising inflation have forced a minor from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to support his family. Twelve-year-old Raheel told this to Aaj News as World Day Against Child Labour was observed on Sunday.

Raheel, who affords 12 members of his family, including seven siblings, parents, an aunt and an uncle, has been employed at a mechanic shop from a very young age where he has learned how to repair motorbikes.

The minor who is now skilled at repairing motorbikes works as a junior mechanic, commonly known as ‘shagird’, at the workshop.

His father works for a businessman who deals in scrap, but he does not earn from the employment on a daily basis. “Sometimes he makes money from purchasing scrap from people. Other times he returns home empty-handed,” Raheel said.

The teenager wanted to get education. However, he feared how his family would “afford food” if he left work and got admission to the school.

Clause 3 of the Constitution strictly prohibits child labour. It said: “No child below the age of 14 years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment.”

About 3.3 million of Pakistani children are trapped in child labor, according to the Pakistan’s first and only National Child Labour Survey conducted in 1996.

Last year, President Arif Alvi paid tribute to young Iqbal Masih, who was murdered on April 16, 1995, after he became a symbol of the struggle against child labour. He received the first World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child posthumously in 2000.

The 2022 theme of the international day is “universal social protection to end child labour”. It demands increased investment in social protection systems and schemes to establish solid social protection floors and protect children from child labour.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres tweeted: “Child labour has no place in today’s world. Sadly, it remains a reality for 160 million children.”