A 12 year old boy serves tea at a stall near the bus stand. A girl of 10 washes dishes in a neighbour's house. You see scenes like this in every city in Pakistan. Most people assume it is normal. It is not. Pakistani law says a child that young should not be working at all.
What is child labour?
Child labour is work that takes away a child's childhood. The ILO, the UN agency for work, defines it as work that harms a child's health, mind, or schooling. Working is not always illegal. Helping your parents on the farm after school is not the same as working full time in a factory. The law draws the line at age and at danger.
What does the law say in Pakistan?
Three layers: the Constitution, federal law, and provincial law.
The Constitution is the top layer. Article 11 says no child below the age of 14 shall be employed in a factory, mine, or other hazardous work. Article 25-A, added in 2010, makes education free and compulsory for children aged 5 to 16. A child belongs in school. The law says so.
The federal law is the Employment of Children Act 1991. It bans employing a child below 14 in factories, carpet weaving, mines, and other listed occupations. The full list is in the Act's schedule, and the Act itself is public.
At what age can a child work?
The law sets minimum ages in different places:
- Factories Act 1934: 14 years for factory work
- Mines Act 1923: 15 years for mines
- Shops and Establishments Ordinance 1969: 14 years for shops
- Hazardous work: 18 years under provincial laws, following ILO Convention 138
Here is what matters. A minimum age is a floor, not a permission slip. Even at 14, a child cannot be pushed into dangerous work. Dangerous work starts at 18.
Which work is banned for children?
The 1991 Act lists occupations and processes where children cannot work at all: factories, carpet weaving, mines, and work that is dangerous to health or safety. The provincial laws go further. They ban the worst forms: bonded labour in brick kilns, exploitative domestic work, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced begging.
What changed after 2010?
The 18th Amendment moved labour from the federal list to the provinces. So the 1991 Act now applies mainly to Islamabad. Each province passed its own law:
- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Prohibition of Employment of Children Act 2015
- Punjab: Restriction on Employment of Children Act 2016, plus a separate Brick Kilns Act 2016
- Sindh: Prohibition of Employment of Children Act 2017
- Balochistan: Employment of Children (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 2021
All of them raise the minimum age for hazardous work to 18 and ban the worst forms of child labour.
What happens to an employer who breaks the law?
Under the 1991 Act, employing a child in a banned occupation carries imprisonment of up to one year, or a fine of up to Rs 20,000, or both. A repeat offence means at least six months and up to two years in jail. The provinces have made penalties stricter.
Bonded labour has its own law. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act 1992 cancels bonded labour and makes it a crime, with jail time of two to five years. A child working to pay off a family debt in a brick kiln is bonded labour, and it is illegal.
How many children work in Pakistan?
The numbers are big and official. UNICEF and the ILO said in June 2026 that 8.6 million children in Pakistan are in child labour, and over 6.6 million of them are in hazardous work. That figure comes from a joint report covered by Dawn.
Punjab's own child labour survey, for 2019-20, found 13.4% of children aged 5 to 14 in child labour. That is up from 8.2% in 1996. Boys work more than girls: 16.8% against 9.7%. Most working children are in agriculture, about 69 out of every 100, according to the US Department of Labor.
Globally, the ILO and UNICEF counted 138 million children in child labour in 2024. Pakistan is a big part of that picture.
Where can you report child labour?
If you see a child working in dangerous conditions, you have options:
- National Commission on the Rights of Child (NCRC): complaint line 051-9202733
- Punjab: Labour and Human Resource Department, online complaint form
- Sindh: Child helpline 1121, run by the Sindh Child Protection Authority
- Police: child labour is an offence. A complaint can be registered as an FIR
If the police are slow to act, an FIR still matters. You can read how to check your FIR online in Pakistan, and what an FIR is, to know what comes next.
What it means for you
If you employ anyone, check their age and their documents. If you see a child working in a kiln, a workshop, or a home in unsafe conditions, report it. The law has been on the child's side since 1991. The gap is enforcement, and enforcement often starts with one complaint. Read more on the Lexiber blog or return to the Lexiber home page.
Ask Lexiber free in English or Urdu. It shows you the exact section behind every answer.
Want the enforcement side? See what Pakistan's law does and doesn't do to stop child labour.
