ILO 'plays soccer' for laboured children in Sialkot
07 Jul '06
3 min read
With only a pile of bricks serving as goalposts and white lines drawn in the dust, the 20 or so boys running after the ball with enthusiasm and energy defied the scorching 47°C heat in this industrial city in northwestern Pakistan.
Far away from the luxurious lawns of the German stadiums during the World Cup, this football match was organized under an ILO-IPEC project designed to remove children from labouring in cramped and dangerous workshops and get them into schools and onto the playing field. For the boys on the field, it seemed like more fun than their former tasks of stitching football or making surgical instruments.
The same week, ILO-IPEC, FIFA and the Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) officially launched a pilot project to incorporate football matches into their existing child labour prevention and elimination programmes in Sialkot District.
The pilot represents the newest phase of the “Elimination of Child Labour in the Soccer Ball Industry in Sialkot” project */, launched in 1997, which has become a proven trendsetter in combating child labour in Sialkot District through combining workplace monitoring with education, health and social protection programmes.
In 1996, trade unions helped bring to light the extent of child labour in the football industry of Pakistan. As of 1997, the ILO, through IPEC, has worked with the Government of Pakistan, FIFA, the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI), trade unions, manufacturers, UNICEF and NGOs to combat it.
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