Islamabad - She is squatting in the dirt, collecting garbage from heaps of rubbish in the slum areas of the federal capital.

Zainab (8) and her brother Adnan (6) hold their sacks on their shoulders in the early hours of morning, although unkempt in their appearance yet with generous smiles on their faces.

One wonders at their toil, their heart-rending routine of picking waste, often toxic and full of stench, when these little kids lose another day of their childhood, unlike others who grow up normal, enjoying the nurture and pleasures of a carefree childhood.

They wear traditional begrime attire and short rubber boots. Zainab and Adnan are among 1.2 million working street children who often leave their family or religious seminaries due to violence, says Rana Asif who had launched an NGO Initiator a decade ago to tackle the teeming issue of street children in Pakistan.

Street children are found working everywhere in Pakistan - from populous settlement areas to vast farms and often on the piling heaps in the suburbs of various cities of Pakistan, besides the capital.

These children, majority of them are male, are regularly found at vicinities of twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad in Bangash Colony, Bari Imam Shrine and at bus stands of Pirwadhai and Faizabad.

Both these children are hostage to trash they collect for a scrap dealer, in return the dealer gives them an amount of Rs 2,000 ($20) a month, without any off-day amidst the vagaries and hardships of weather from scorching summer heat to shivering winter season.

They do not go to school while their parents advise them if someone asked about the education, they should respond that they are attending school but are currently on vacations.

Various police officials in Islamabad confirmed that they had noticed teenage boys several times been showing themselves as school students while working as scavengers. 

Rana Asif linked it with the refugee issue and inflation in the country.

According to an Initiator survey, 66 percent of the street children are runaways who were forced to leave their homes due to experiencing of violence at household levels and workplaces.

International Labour Organisation (ILO) Director General Guy Ryder says, “Child labour predominantly exists in the rural and informal economies beyond the reach of labour inspection but its existence among the slum-dwellers in the capital is the wake-up call for the government to work for educating these children.”

Both Zainab and Adnan are among thousands of Pakistani children who work as scavengers getting through piles of rubbish for a day that gives out less than a $1.

Handling the unsafe waste on daily basis can cause severe health hazards for these little children involved in picking piles of the waste dumped by the entire country.

“There exist numerous such children in the shabby areas of the Bari Imam, a shrine at village Noorpur Shahan in the foothills of Margalla. Most of them get food from the shrine due to poverty,” said Zulfiqar Haider Jagirani, Chairman Health Oriented Preventive Education (HOPE), an Islamabad based NGO.

According to UNICEF, the persistence of street children is rooted in poverty and lack of decent work for adults, lack of social protection, and a failure to ensure that all children attend school, as opposed to engaging in under-age economic activity. Research has demonstrated that child labour can jeopardise a child’s immediate health and safety as well as their health status later in life, especially for those children who are engaged in the worst forms of child labour.

Sarah Coleman, Child Protection Chief UNICEF Pakistan says, “A formal protection mechanism for children against abuse and exploitation at the workplace is often absent, including in the street work, further exacerbated by weak implementation of child labour policy and laws. Despite the prevalence of child labour in Pakistan, the potential benefits gained by ending child labour cannot be repudiated.”

Additionally metals like copper, iron and steel found in the heaps of waste material works as most lucrative sale material for them. These items are sold more than Rs 500 ($5) per kilogram and Iron Rs 200 ($2) per kilogram.

Pakistan is generating about 22 million tonnes of solid waste annually, according to the country’s environment ministry, as a result it’s dumping can generate a hub of child labour across the country. However, rise in the figures is about 2.5 percent each year. The waste management approaches in the country remain adequately poor.

The ILO estimated that even as child labour issue remains rampant, almost 5.6 million people including over four million children die each year of waste-related diseases in Pakistan.

Rana Asif told The Nation, “These street children are more prone to their involvement in illicit trafficking, drug abuse and child sexual abuse.” However, he revealed that 30% street children are forcibly involved in commercial sex industry in the entire country with the amount of Rs 10,000 ($100) per month to the mafia who brought them from various parts of the country.

A recent study revealed that public and private hospitals laboratories and clinics in the capital do not have proper measures to dispose hazardous waste. The solid waste disposal requires special treatment prior to dumping at landfill sites, otherwise, they pose serious threat to environment and human life, health and environment, experts say.

After 12 years since the government of Punjab adopted the laws on child labour in 2004, the child protection bureau in Punjab province is clueless to get rid of the escalating number of street children, including out of school children. According to latest government report in Pakistan, there are a staggering 24 million children are out of school.

“Street children are the genuine issue and government is taking substantial measures including the criminal law amendment passed on 18 March on child sexual abuse.

Minister for Human Rights Kamran Michael yesterday stressed on the need of crackdown against the mafia using children in various illegal activities across the country.”

Muhammad Hassan Mangi, Director General Ministry of human Rights said, “We have drafted the child protection law for Islamabad Capital Territory Child Protection Bureau under Chief Commissioner Islamabad, and after approval of the Prime Minister it will be passed and implemented in the entire capital. However, there was no concrete law existing earlier in the capital which deals with the heinous crimes against children,” Mangi said.

Various child rights activists call for the government to establish well-equipped rehabilitation centres to ensure the provision of all basic facilities to street children who fall in the hands of strong mafia in the society.

Asif Farooqi, the CEO of Waste Busters, a Pakistani waste management and recycling firm, says an important part of the problem is inappropriate waste collection. The services available to dump heavy waste are much less compared to the waste generated.

Farooqi said, “We need support from the government in proper organising of waste management to avoid millions of children involved in collecting waste and state must abolish this trend to avoid this rampant practice in various parts of the country.”

The UN Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 reaffirms the goal of ending child labour from the developing world. Acting together, it is within our means to make the future of work having no child labour.

The poor South Asian countries are struggling to manage solid waste and millions of children have been denied of their right to education and continue to scavenge waste for petty income at the cost of their childhood, education and health.