Minors and Youth

This page was last updated on: 2023-08-15

Minimum Age for Employment

Article 11.3 of the Constitution of Pakistan says " No child below the age of fourteen years shall be engaged in any factory or mine or any other hazardous employment." Similar safeguards have been provided in Article 37of Constitution. Section 50 of Factories Act 1934 reads as under: "Prohibition of employment of young children. - No child who has not completed his fourteenth year shall be allowed to work in any factory."                                                

The children under the age of 14 years cannot be employed in any public or private industrial undertaking containing  process  dangerous to life, health or moral of children under the provisions of the said laws. The Employment of Children Act, 1991 has provided a schedule of hazardous occupation and processes where the employment of children under the age of 14 years is totally prohibited. The child worker is, however, permitted to work as a member of the family engaged in any process not declared hazardous under Section 3 of the said Act. 

The detailed information on child labour legislation is provided here: 

Child Labour and Pakistan

Minimum Age for Hazardous Work

The Employment of  Children Act 1991 prescribes 4 occupations and 34 processes wherein employment of children (under the age of 14) is prohibited. It does not set a higher minimum age for hazardous work. These include transport of passengers or goods; underground mining; manufacturing; mixing and applying pesticides and insecticides;  stone crushing; scavenging including hospital waste; working at railway stations or ports; carpet weaving; spice grinding; working in boiler house; deep-sea fishing; construction; working in the glass bangle industry and manufacturing cement, explosives, and other products that involve the use of toxic substances. Night work and overtime work is also prohibited under new legislation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh. 

The detailed information on child labour legislation is provided here: 

Child Labour and Pakistan

 

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