Program Tackles Child Labor in Pakistan

Pakistan's twelve year old Kabir Qadeer sorts out surgery instruments at a local workshop in Sialkot, Pakistan on Dec 5, 2006. Qadeer attends an International Labour Organisation (ILO) sponsered school after his seven-hour shift of making surgical instruments. (AP Photo/B.K.Bangash) (B.k.bangash - AP)

International outcry about surgical instruments is quiet, by contrast, partly because Sialkot's medical goods are resold countless times by international wholesalers.

Sometimes equipment made here is even stamped "Made in Germany" at the request of middlemen worried about Pakistan's image _ further obscuring their origin.

Sialkot's roots in surgical instruments stretch back centuries to the Punjabi swordsmiths of the Mogul empire. But it got its modern boost during World War II, when British colonial authorities called on the city's craftsmen for badly needed medical supplies.

Nowadays, the city pumps out 100 million instruments a year, and the United States and Germany are its biggest markets. International buyers may pay Sialkot suppliers $2 for forceps that eventually fetch upward of $60 when sold to a hospital, Abbas said.

The gap is part of the problem, say some labor rights activists.

Fairer trade would give Sialkot companies a bigger slice of the final sale and allow them to raise pay and improve working conditions of their employees. "The solution lies in purchasers promoting fair trade, rather than a simple, 'We won't buy child labor.' This only makes the poor poorer," says Mahmood Bhutta, a doctor in Britain who has written on surgical instrument labor and is trying to set up a fair-trade supplier.

But many poor Pakistani families rely on incomes from their children to get by. UNICEF estimates there are 3.6 million working boys and girls under age 14 in Pakistan, mostly engaged in carpet-weaving, brick-making, agriculture and deep-sea fishing.

"The problem with our country is that we accept child labor as a way of life," said Fazila Gulrez, spokeswoman for the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. "There's not a single economic sector in Pakistan where children are not employed."

Kabir is among those apparently satisfied with the status quo.

Gathering half-finished dental probes from the grit-covered factory floor, he says he can't wait to turn 15 so he can graduate to the grinders, lathes and other machines reserved for his elders. His boss, who started work at 14, has promised $1.60 a day then.