Abstrict

Child labor is the growing curse in the world particularly in the developing countries and Pakistan is also the victim of this growing global phenomenon because of multiple reasons behind which encourage intentionally or unintentionally the dilemma of child labor. Child labor had multiple side effects that disturb the social fabric of the society and its growing statistics alarms the government of Pakistan to take the most possible and appropriate measures to combat this curse. This paper attempts to highlight the socio-economic and political causes of child labor and had the objective to investigate the problem by applying mix methods of research using the convergent technique to get the real essence of the study with the multi-perspective lens. The study also provides recommendations along with the statistics to the policymakers for legislation.

Keywords

Socio-economic, Political, Child Labor

Background

The future of any nation rests in the hands of the youth because the youth of any state takes responsibility for the progress or downfall of their country. The state can only make progress if the youth is educated and sensible. And the youth might be fruitful if it is socialized in a progressive way. The country may take off the flight to the horizon if the children are educated. If these very young members of the society are put in the working field than how they can handle the future of the state in a prosperous way to compete the rest of the world.  But unfortunately, the future of the children is not so safe in developing countries. They are forced to take part in the working field from the very start of their lives. “According to the International Labor Organization(IL0), there are 250 million children between the ages of 5 to 14 work part-time or full time”. 120 million children take part in full-time jobs while resting in part-time. They are working in different job fields like factories, enterprises, agriculture and homes. Even international companies and firms are hiring the services of the children (Bachman, 2000). Child labor is not the latest phenomenon.  The roots of this dreadful phenomenon can be traced back to the industrial revolution during Zia-ul-Haq’s era when there was an urgent need for the workers. The wage of the children was cheaper as compared to the adults so the children were hired in the newly developed factories that were set up by the capitalists who were only concerned with their outcomes rather with their future. Most of the developed countries took steps to combat child labor and passed laws after World War II. On the other hand, most sophisticated technologies had been introduced which reduced the use of working members (Awan et al, 2011).

According to Rodgers and Standing (1981), there are different four categories of child labor. These categories are the following. 

i. Wage labor

ii. Domestic work

iii. Non-domestic and non-monitory work 

iv. Bonded labor 

Child laborers are vulnerable to health hazards and particularly vulnerable to physical pain and injury (Levison & Murray-Close, 2005). Bonded child labor, domestic work, mining, fishing, construction, manufacture, farming are occupations involving the vast majority of child laborers and exposed to health hazards. Impacts of environmental and occupational conditions vary from country to country. Differences are also based on age and gender (Jones, & O’Donnell, 2002). There is an argument that all activities of child laborers are not harmful/brutal rather few activities like babysitting and newspaper delivery services provide them successful learning opportunities. But the prostitution, trafficking and pornographic activities are harmful and exposed to psychological stress (Dessy, & Pallage, 2003). 

 International organizations made great efforts to eliminate the curse of child labor and adopted and enforced such legislations that restrict or prohibit it from society. It is a widespread phenomenon throughout the world to ban child labor is a difficult task for low-income countries such as Pakistan. Education is the most concerned and general phenomenon to address this curse which will aware of the children to take them aside from child labor. However, the affordability of child education is another matter of concern. Even after enrollment, they have an issue in attending school continuously. 

Child Labor in Pakistan

In collaboration with ILO, the Federal Bureau of Statistics conducted a national survey on child labor in 1996 which provides numbers of children age from 5-14 which were 40 million. Out of these children, 3.3 million (8.3%) were taking part in financial activities. In these working children, 73% were male members while 27% of these were females. And at the provincial level, the majority of these children 58.6% were found in Punjab and the rest of these in all other provinces of Pakistan. On the other hand at the rural and urban level, children are working 8 times more in rural areas as compared to urban areas. In all of these children, 1/3 are literate while the others are illiterate. Most of the child laborers are unpaid because they are hired as helpers. If some are paid, they get very little as compared to the adult workers. In the house jobs, they get seasonally benefits from the owners. But at the shops, stores, and other organizations, they sometimes get more sometimes less. Around 46% of child labor worked for 35 hours an average a week however good proportion is 56 hours a week. It shows that they are not far behind the adult workers in the time category (Zarif, et al., 2013). 

Awan highlighted the concept of child labor by using the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS, 2007-08). The basic focus of his study was province Punjab of Pakistan and according to the findings, the author the root cause of child labor was the absence of a parent’s education. Those parents who are uneducated mostly prefer to enroll their children for a job rather than for education. They only intend to get money through the earnings of their children. They do not concentrate on the future of their children that if they educate their children they would be the fruitful treasure for them as well as for the country. Secondly, the findings of this study also show that boys are more victims of child labor than girls (Awan, et al., 2011).

However, Ahmad pointed out that unemployment, poverty, lack of education, overpopulation and health care are the major factors that force children to work (Ahmad, 2012). Household economic conditions hinder enrollment of children between 10-14 years of age. There is gender segregation in the dropout rate and school attendance because of their predetermined roles such as boys are supposed to earn for the family and the girls are responsible for house chores (Kakoli & Sayeed, 2013). Education has not been concerned as useful by poor families due to inadequate education system and high rates of literate unemployed. So, it was considered that work provides skills that helped to earn income (Ahmed, 2012). 

Determinants of Child Labor in Pakistan

Child labor is a continuous stigmatizing phenomenon of the country that hinders the way of progress (Kousar et al., 2005). According to statistics of a child labor survey of 1996, there are 8.25 % of children involved in labor which makes 3.6 million out of 40 million (nearly total children population). The survey was conducted with mutual collaboration by the federal bureau of statistics, ILO and ministry of labor. The statistics showed after survey that children are engaged in multiple sectors for labor such as working in brick kilns, the agriculture sector, small industries, domestic services and carpet weaving. There are some self-employed children doing shoe shining, car cleaning or hawking at roads/streets (Khan, 2001).

A child is the future of a state/mankind that needs protection from all socio-physical menaces for a child’s proper growth (Swada and Lokshin, 2000). Working children suffer anemia, malnutrition and are more exposed to infectious diseases (Fassa et al.1999).  Such children have too many responsibilities and long working hours which affect their psycho-social development and deprivation of education and deprived them of basic education.  

Poverty and Child labor

The child belongs to poor families’ raises child poverty. Adult and child poverty differs because of their different effects and reasons. Child poverty robs childhood and affects psychological makeup, upbringing and leaves permanent effects on the child mind and life. Poverty has also social impacts on a child’s multi-sided long term growth and development (Ortiz, et al,.2012). Numerous empirical studies highlighted the problem and showed the connection between living standards and child labor. Krueger (1996) stated that children belong to low-income households are more likely to get indulge in child labor activities than the high-income household child’s. The researcher observed this trend from a cross-country sample. Duryea, Lam and Levison (2007) found that father’s unemployment is another factor that forces their children to work to raise family income.  Whereas, Aqil (2012) assumes that child labor passes from generation to generation when parents work in their childhood their children will work too and grow up as low skilled and uneducated individuals.  Therefore parent’s education influenced children's education. Fasih (2007) “assumes that child labor creates unskilled and uneducated labor which in return affects the country’s development and economy.”

Overview of Child labor 

Children were forced to work during the beginning of the industrial revolution because they provide cheap labor. In 1833 and 1844 the first legislation implied the idea to remove children from all kinds of labor activities. But still, there are many children continuing labor prohibited by law (Bhat, 2011). There is a deficiency of reliable statistical sources of child labor to verify the incidence of child labor throughout the world. Majority incidences concerning child labor are invisible due to the failure of the government to collect data (Das, 2012). The most traditional and common form of child labor is domestic work which especially involves a girl child. It is hidden from public supervision and government control because it is carried out in the limits of homemaking and influenced the psycho-social and physical abuse with long working hours.  Government and society as a community did not take into consideration the domestic work as a grave and alarming problem that’s why an accurate number of such child laborers are unfortunately difficult to guess. A paid or unpaid labor of a child at a third party’s home is called child domestic labor (Lyon, & Valadivia, 2010). 

There are many factors that push children to work and contribute to this rapidly rising social problem. Mostly children of illiterate families get involved because their parents are unaware of all those socio-psychological and physical health hazards which can affect their children badly. Because those parents are interested in the increment in the wages of their labor child because of their family conditions and need for economic support to fulfill the basic needs of the family (OHCHR, 2014). It is the supply and demand rule that has given birth to domestic work phenomena. They get low wages and exploited by the owner because it is hidden and unprofessional work which is not under the control of the community or government. Domestic child labor is wasting the productivity of our future generation. Child domestic work is acknowledged as “A drowning man catches at a straw”. It increases family income and reduces the expenditure of a child living with a third party (Bhat, 2005).

Despite the lack of reliable official statistical data, there are 215 million boys and girls aged 5-17 years and 115 million are working in unsafe conditions of job in 2008 according to ILO estimation (Aqil, 2012). The agriculture sector involves the majority of child labor which leads to child labor as a complex rural problem because agriculture always remained as the backbone of any developing country's economy (Baker, 2008). Generally, it is considered that rural children are more engaged in labor activities than urban children because they depend on agriculture and poverty is more dominant there (Akarro, & Mtweve, 2011). To raise household income in rural poor families children are considered as earning sources through working in farms (Serwadda-Luwaga, 2005).

It also exists in urban centers in different forms such as domestic work or sales. Although the working condition is very poor, crowded and unhealthy and works for extra hours and low/no wage. Girls are more vulnerable because of the prevailed notion of trafficking for sexual abuse and exploitation in urban centers. Poverty is the main factor which leads poor urban children to lack of education, social protection and social health care (Baker, 2008). It is evident that children belong to urban areas have better opportunities of schooling than rural children’s because of available opportunities and facilities. Rural children face issues of transportation and infrastructure because schools are located in far off areas and these are challenging affairs for families (Hueble, 2008).  Moreover, rural-urban child laborers differ in many ways such as in terms of the relationship between schooling and child labor. Such as general education levels are low among rural child laborers (Edmonds, 2007). Ray (2001) conducted research in Pakistan and Nepal where he assumed that “gender bias was more prevalence in case of Pakistan than compared to Nepal. In Pakistan, boys are more likely to work longer hours than girls and rural children are poorer than urban, while it was the opposite in Nepal.”

The International Organizations

The two predominant international agencies ILO and UNICEF are working against child labor through implementing various programs and by supporting governments on setting policies or conventions. There are various direct and indirect projects to strengthen skills. Improvements in healthcare and the provision of quality education are the main projects of UNICEF. ILO set two international labor standard conventions that are prescribed to protect the children from unsafe, unhealthy, exploiting labor and set the age of 14 to work. Children are not allowed to work who are under 14 (Bhat, 2010; Bhat & Rather 2009). Huebler (2008) suggested that when the family lacks basic human needs any policy on child labor is not effective for society. Most of the countries have child labor laws but difficult to enforce because living conditions forced children to earn for the family by ignoring the education policies. 

ILO adopted Convention No.138 Minimum Age Convention in 1973 approved by 161 countries. The main aim of this convention was to set the minimum age for child employment. Children under 15 years of age should not work because it will affect their health and schooling. Children under 13 are not allowed to join even any light work and the working condition for less than 18 years child should not be unsafe and risky (Betchrman, et al., 2004). ILO introduced the term “worst form of Child Labor” and 174 countries approved the “Worst form of Child labor Convention 182” in 1999. It was introduced to focus on the elimination of dangerous working conditions for under 18 children. This convention outlaws all types of bonded labor, trafficking, prostitution, or any job with a dangerous working condition that can affect the mental, physical or psychological health of the child. In poor countries children are more exposed to dangerous works and lack basic facilities; it also includes children begging or selling something on the streets (ILO, 2012).

UN Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC, 1989) consists of 154 articles. CRC states that primary education should be compulsory and free by the state. Secondary education development along with technical training should be encouraged. There are five provisions in CRC about child labor.  CRC include Article 1, 19, 28, 32, 34, 36 about Child Labor (Aqil, 2012). 

Article 1: “It defines the Child as a person who is under the age of 18.” (Aqil, 2012)

Article 19: “It states that children need protection from violence and exploitation.” (Aqil, 2012)

Article 28: “It states that children need protection from sexual exploitation and abuse.” (Aqil, 2012)

Article 32: “It states that every child should be protected from work exploitation and from hazardous jobs which hinder children’s education, or harm their health and development.” (Aqil, 2012)

Article 34:  “It mentions that children have the right to access primary education.” (Aqil, 2012)

Article 36: “It states that a child has the right to be protected from all forms of exploitation.” (Aqil, 2012)

“Millennium Declaration on the year 2000 adopted by United Nations (UN) aimed to achieve 8 goals by 2015, Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; Achieve Universal Primary Education; Promotion of gender equality and women empowerment; Reduction in child mortality, improvement in mental health of Child; fighting against HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental stability and developing global partnership for development.” (Rena, 2009).

Literature Review

Fessa, Facchin, Dall’Agnol, and Christiani (1999) in their research paper, “Child Labor and Health: Problems and Perspectives” stated that the child laborer supports the family so in this perspective child labor is an effective activity. Because when there is no adult member in the family to earn for basic necessities of families, there is no other way for the child except to go to the workplace to earn for the family. But it is also harmful to the children as the work environment is not child-friendly and impact badly on child health. 

“Cigno, A., Rosati, F. & Guarcello, L. (2002)” in the article “Does Globalization increase Child labor?” coined the view that the major key player of child labor is parents as it depends on their decision whether their child goes to school or to earn. Poor parents cannot afford expensive schooling so they support their child to work and learn some skills to earn a livelihood. In a rural area, fewer facilities of education keep children away from getting benefits of education and push a child to get involved in labor work. In rural areas the majority of the child labor involved in agricultural activities which enhances the level of uneducated workers. Contrary to that in urban areas, the demand for educated labor is increased due to industrialization and uneducated labor gets lesser opportunities in the main workstream.  

Mahmood, Mann, Tabasam, and Niazi (2005), in their article, “Socioeconomic Determinates of Child Labor in automobile and engineering workshops” stated that the socio-economic status of the family is the main factor behind the child labor. Because children get to work when the family fails to fulfill the basic needs of their child. So, poverty pushes a child to engage in work. In residential and industrial areas there is number of organizations, factories and homes that gave the opportunity to the child to work there. 

Ray, R. (2001) conducted a study “Simultaneous analysis of Child Labor and Child Schooling: Comparative evidence from Nepal and Pakistan” in which researchers find out that in an educated society there are less efficient opportunities for child labor. The study concluded that economic factors are very important in finding reasons for child labor. 

Human rights commission of Pakistan (Report 2010) considers poverty, social attitudes, large family size and low literacy rate as basic reasons of child labor in Pakistan.

Ahmed (1991) in the report, “Child labor-A time to reflect” stated illiteracy, poverty, large family size and migration as a factor of child labor in Pakistan. The author also added that inadequate economic resources, high birth rate and lack of enforcement of elementary of level education laws as contributing factors. These factors made Pakistani children more vulnerable to labor in comparison to most other countries. 

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) reported in 2012 that child labor is an extreme issue of inhumanity and the labor laws fail to cover this inhumanity as one million children in Pakistan are just engaged in domestic services and face physical and sexual assault. (HRCP, 2012)




Research Question 

“What are the socio-economic causes of child labor in Pakistan?”

Objectives 

o To explore the social causes of child labor 

o To investigate the role of economic matters in promoting child labor. 

o To explain the psycho-social problems being faced by a child laborer in Pakistan.

o To find out the role of political leadership in combating child labor in Pakistan.




Problem Statement

Child labor has become a very crucial issue for the contemporary world especially for developing countries. In the developing countries, inadequate and lack of policymaking and poor implementation of these strategies due to a lower level of commitment to combat this phenomenon. Pakistan is an unfortunate developing country with an increasing number of child laborers despite much work is going to be done to control it. This study is an attempt to reveal the causes of child labor in Pakistan. Further, it will help the government to make policies about this concerned issue. 

 

Methodology

This section relates to the methods and techniques used by the researchers in this study. Researchers opted for the convergent technique of mixed-method research to understand the real essence of the topic with the multi-perspective lens. The interview schedule is used as a tool to collect data in the quantitative section and the interview guide is used as a tool in the qualitative section. 

The table given below shows the nature of data collection in the present research. 



The descriptive dimension of research is used in the study to describe the socio-economic factors in the prevalence of child labor. In the quantitative section, 50 child laborers were interviewed using an interview schedule as a tool.  This process took two months as it was a tough task especially to get permission and win the confidence of workplace owners and children. The list of workshops, factories, hotels and markets of major hubs of four provinces were enlisted to make easy access to the laborers. Domestic laborers were intentionally excluded due to many reservations. SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) is used by the researcher to deal with data in a better way.  In the Qualitative section, 15 in-depth interviews were conducted using the interview guide. These 15 participants were selected from three sectors (lawyers, public social sector officials, NGO sector officials). Domain analysis is used to make a semantic relation between the concepts in qualitative analysis sections. 




Findings of Quantitative Analysis

The finding shows the age, gender, and nationality wise distribution of respondents as important sample characteristics. It is observed from the study that the majority of the respondents of this study has 8-11 years of age, belong to the male gender. It is because girls are more involved in domestic labor which form of labor is not included in this study.  It is observed from findings that the majority of the respondents fall in the category of Pakistani nationality and only 5% of the respondents fall in the category of foreigner nationality. Respondents specified that their parents are afghan national but respondents born and residing in Pakistan since birth. 

The majority of respondents’ level of education is primary which indicates the higher dropout rate in secondary education due to various reasons.  The study shows the respondent’s family structure; an important social characteristic. Majority of the respondents belongs to extended and then single-parent family structure. It indicates that extended family structure (large family size household) and single-parent structure are pushing children towards child labor in Pakistani society. The findings show that the majority of respondents have 500-8000 monthly household income. 

Majority of the respondents’ parents level of education fall in the Illiterate category which indicates that working is the more dominant factor instead of getting an education because their parents are not educated due to various reasons. 

Study shows that the majority of respondents have large family size including above 12 members which indicates that large family size is another important aspect in pushing children towards labor. 

The majority of respondents have 9-12 hours of working in a day which is dangerous for their physical and mental and shows child exploitation by employers.

The majority of respondents have 1000-2000 rupees per month which are alarming and show child exploitation by employers. It also indicates that children provide cheap labor of long working hours for a very small amount of monthly income.

Study states about the residential status of respondents that only 25.5% of respondents own or rented houses and the majority of respondents 74.5% are living in tent houses in slum areas or homeless which shows the poverty level of the family. It indicates that such children are living in very poor conditions and facing so many problems. In such circumstances how could anyone think of getting an education in such a condition despite earning a livelihood.  It also indicates that to announce free education is not enough effort by the government, it should be implemented. Children should be given remuneration to motivate them and their parents to let them get education.

The study states that 14.5% of respondent’s fathers belong to the profession of peon, 59.5% work as cleaners/Sweeper/Gardener, 10% are daily wage earners with no permanent labor and 16% respondent’s fathers are unemployed, deceased and addicted of drugs. It shows that in Pakistani society where male especially father is considered the head of family and bread earner for the whole family when he failed to perform their duties children are forced to labor in such households. 

Findings show occupation of respondent’s mothers, that 39% belong to the Roadside seller/ Beggar category, 19.5% fall in Sewing/carpet weaver etc., 27% fall in Maid/sweeper category and 14.5% respondent’s mothers are housewife/deceased. 

Study shows 23% respondent belongs to self-employment category, 51.5% fall in employed category and 25.5% fall in the unpaid category. Majority of the respondents employed in this city. There were a few places where child laborers are not getting paid because they are at the learning phase of work such as an auto-shop mechanic. 

Study shows the employment status of respondent’s that 24.5% belongs to roadside seller/hawker category, 15.5% fall in shoe shiner/maker category, 9.5% fall in Beggars category, 24.5% fall in car cleaner category, 14% fall in sweeper/garbage collector category and 12% fall in work at auto repair shop category. The majority of the respondents are roadside sellers/hawkers and car cleaner. 

Study shows the reason of being at work, it stated 19.5% belongs to poverty category, 13.5% fall in family size category, 8.5% fall in Family economic Circumstances category, 21.5% fall in Unemployment of parents category, 13.5% fall in Parents mistrust on education category, 10.5% fall in Increasing number of educated unemployed category and 13% fall in Personal wish category. Results show that there are various socio-economic factors that influenced the family and force children to work at early age. 

Qualitative Data Analysis

Socio-economic Factors: 

There are several conditions that affect child labor.

Poverty as Root Cause

The research found that poverty is among the root causes of socio-economic factors that are responsible for child labor. In the social setup of Pakistan, all decisions of a child's life are generally made by parents including schooling and child labor. Children are seen as a contributor in family income when they belong to the family living below the poverty line. It is difficult to afford child schooling for poor parents. It is assessed by the study that tackling poverty to reduce child labor is the best solution. 

Family Size

The research found that the size of a large family is a contributing element in the menace of child labor. Children from large size poor households are more prone towards child labor than Children belongs to small size poor families. Because it is challenging to fulfill the basic requirements of family members of a large poor household by the head of the family as an only wage earner. In a large household, it is not necessary that all children under the age of 14 are child laborers.  Gender differences are also found related to working of the child such as boys get more opportunities for schooling than girls. Despite gender age also matters such as elder siblings contribute to family income more often. Study indicates that as the economic burden falls primarily on elder children of the family so the younger ones may get less involved whereas the study found that girls of the family are more exposed than boys as child labor. 

Family Circumstances

The study observed that the majority of child laborers who work to support themselves and their siblings when they lost their parents (both or one) or their parents are suffering from severe diseases such as (T.B., HIV, AIDS etc.). The research also found that the majority of street children are orphans.

Culture

The present study found that culture is a driving factor for children to get involved in the labor market. In Pakistani society, there are some sub-cultures in which working at a young age is a tradition. It is assumed by the family that to get skills of any sort of labor activities at a young age will be useful in the future to earn for family livelihood. So many families from different cultures want their children to get skilled labor at an early age.

Corruption

The present study found another surprising factor of “corruption” which contributes to child labor. Respondents believed that wherever there is corruption in society there is poverty. The socio-economic growth of a state is hindered by the government officials’ corruption which negatively affects child rights and basic services (healthcare, infrastructure and education). It reduces the chances of escaping from poverty for child laborers. There are many corrupt labor inspectors who use underage children with low wages and lead to an increasing number of child laborers. 

Urban Migration

The research study found that there are many rural families (mostly poor) who migrate towards urban areas are forced to live and work in streets because of deficiency of basic needs such as food, shelter, clothes etc. Children of such families turn out to be vendors/hawkers, the illegal labor force (thief, drug sellers, prostitutes etc.) and vulnerable to violence. The majority of such laborers live in slum areas with poor and unhealthy conditions.  Such children work in hotels/restaurants or involve in domestic labor. 

Political Factors

It is evident that to counter this problem it is the responsibility of government and political institutions to make policies in controlling or at least in reducing child labor. The following are the subthemes regarding the political factors.

Provision of Free Education

There is no doubt that the Punjab government is allocating funds and trying to provide free education. But still, there are many areas in well-established districts and cities where free books and education are not available. Poor families cannot afford such an extra burden.

Lack of Vigilance and Monitoring

Less political attention by political elites and lack of vigilance and monitoring had been highlighted in the study by the government agencies. There are many laws in Pakistan to eradicate child labor but the government failed to implement those existing laws. The government and police department takes very less in the reduction of child labor. 

Political Leadership

A worth mentioning theme about the political leadership of Pakistan has emerged during discussion that local, provincial or state level political leadership is not interested in the eradication of this menace. It is widely accepted that political leadership is responsible for the eradication of child labor. But findings of this study endorse that many political personalities are the owner of brick kilns and involved in child labor. 

Psycho-social problems faced by Child laborers

o The increasing demand by the employer regarding speed and work hours 

o Physical abuse by parents and at the workplace by employer.

o Involvement in drug abuse because of the influence of family and peer group. 

o The Physical and verbal humiliation by the employer.

o Such humiliation may create of sense of revenge among child labor which itself had disastrous consequences.  

Study shows that Child labor is a significant issue and believes that it is an unethical antagonistic feature of society. The study explained the various reasons responsible for child labor which are poverty, social issue, civic negligence, unemployment, Parental unawareness and worse standard of life and the role of government as important. 

Conclusion

Child labor is the growing menace that influenced the growth and economic development of the country. The study is meant to investigate the causes, explore the determinants and explain its socio-economic causes and aspects that lead to child labor. The study of such a critical topic requires in-depth study and understanding to investigate, explore and explain reasons for child labor in Pakistan hence mix methodology has been used for accuracy to meet the desired objectives of the study. The geographical setting of the Lahore District is used to conduct the study. There were 200 respondents in quantitative analysis selected through systematic random sampling and 15 respondents were selected in qualitative analysis through a purposive sampling technique. The findings of this mix method study concluded that there are various socio-economic reasons responsible for child labor. Most important factors indicated by results of the current research study are

1. Poverty as a root cause

2. Parents Economic situation

3. Large family size

4. Culture

5. Rural-urban migration

6. Mistrust on education

7. Unemployed educated Bulk

8. Failure of government in provision of free education

9. Lack of monitoring in implement of laws

10. Involvement of political leadership 

Recommendations

There are some recommendations to eradicate child labor through individual or collective effort.

1. To make parents aware of harmful effects and if family circumstances force them to work so their employment in a safe environment.

2. Those who are supporting their family in income generation should be given options for sustainable development.

3. Assistance through providing cloth, food, medicines, etc.

4. Social justice and equality must be ensured.

5. Health and safety regulations must be ensured in the working environment and employment process by factory owners and industrialists.

6. To cater to the concerns of child labor parents, vocational training could be integrated with basic education by the government to avoid any disturbance in the implementation of law regarding child labor and to ensure future educated workforce.

7. Ensure strict observation of child labor laws.

8. Awareness should be created via seminars, conferences and by adding this issue as part of the curriculum so an individual can play an active role at his/her level to minimize the child labor and exploitive behavior of the employer. An individual can empower a child at its capacity with education and skill-based training. It will make States task easy and would be instrumental for policymakers. 

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