A week ago I had a dinner with Jeremy and Ahsan Kirmani, AIESEC alumnus who recently came back from United States from his Masters program and is now working in Pakistan.
As many foreigners (or Pakistanis who came back from abroad) and meeting in a restaurant, we talked a lot about Pakistan. What is different in this country, where it is going, and what can make a difference here.
It was a long talk, but one of the things that struck me most was about child labor in Pakistan.
Ahsan was telling us how, during his university years in Lahore, he was involved in one interesting research program. At that time some Pakistani companies were refused to export their production to Europe due to the fact that they “used child labor” which is against EU standards. So students were supposed to interview the management of the companies and find out why it happened.
My first thought was “Fair enough. Using child labor is not acceptable thing to do. It seems like the right solution”.
But then he told us what was the response of company management. They said: look, we have a choice. These 12-year old kids might not work, and they go begging on the street. Or we can involve them in production, pay them money, and they will have food to eat and go to school.
This is the paradigm that is very difficult to understand for a European people who have normal living standards and who can not imagine how employment can help someone survive from begging, selling flowers on the street, let alone sleeping outside and not eating for days.
On a related note, Mariam was even telling me that some kids are being paid by NGOs for going to school! If they weren’t, they would go begging which is the easy way to get money for food.
The same question is raised when people talk about servants in Pakistan. I mentioned some time before how every upper-class family in Karachi would have their own servants: cleaning ladies, drivers, cooks. “It’s not fair!” – you could say – “how could people be servants for others!” Yet if you look at things from the other side, you will see that these servants get the opportunity to earn money and send their children to good schools, so that they achieve more in life than their parents.
Things might not be as obvious as they look from the 1st glance.
Being in Pakistan, I learned to look from different sides.
Apr 10, 2009
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8 comments:
The fact itself may seem to be "not that bad", but at the end what id the purpose of the companies? Help kids?
Hm, it smells like getting profit and cheap labor, no?
For servants it is different - just another type of job...hm. but why people end up as servants? Free choice? Or no choice? Because in childhood they were working instead of hoing to school...
The question is extremely contraversial, but it seems that untill companies will tell "we r paying them so thay could buy food" nothing will change with the choice thats kids have.
Privet Nastya!
About your first point. I agree with you that the purpose of a company is to make profit. And getting children to work for them will give them profit. But if the salary is according to norms, the working conditions are satisfactory, and young people get the right to choose either to work there or not, I see no harm in this.
Although if conditions are bad, and children are forced to do this work, it is a completely different story. Such companies should be not only punished by law and "banned export", but made to close their production.
I do not know what managers really think and say, and would like to meet with them ans ask.
As for servants.. People end up as servants because they didn't have a good education to find another job, or they didn't know about the choice, because their family were doing this as well. It's job, yes, but this job and attitude to these people at times is different than to people doing other jobs, you know.
I personally think that it is their free choice, but the options that they see are very limited, because they didn't get proper education.
This is a negative fact that 1% of richest population of Pakistan employs 30% of low class in their houses. But from the other hand, it still gives evolution and progression to society, and possibility for better future for the families of these people. This was my point.
Thanks for your comment.
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