UNICEF fears increased child labour
The UN children’s agency is worried child survivors of earthquake are having to look for work to support their families.
Most schools in the region were destroyed in the quake. Some schools have reopened but most children still have no classes to go to. Some, like 14-year-old Mohammad Irfan, are starting work instead. “I have to help my family because we have big problems. We lost everything we had,” Irfan said in the small town of Pattika, where on Monday he got a job as a shop delivery boy.
Irfan, who said he had always dreamed of joining the army, said his school had not reopened since the quake and he had no books or pencils. He took the job working for the shop against the wishes of his father, he said.
Traditionally, many people from Kashmir migrate to Pakistan’s low-land cities and find work as servants, cooks and drivers. Maqbool-ur-Rehman Abbasi, chairman of the Astafada, said children were now following in their older relatives’ footsteps. “A lot of children are moving out of Muzaffarabad and started working as domestic servants,” he said.
Source: Daily Times
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