The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Labour Survey (KPCLS) 2022 is the first child labour survey to provide district level results in the province. Earlier in 1996 a National CLS was carried out at provincial/territory level in Pakistan. The 2022 KPCLS provides unique information about the living conditions of children in the province as well as their daily activities including schooling, working, household chores and leisure. The survey is representative of 8,282,673 children aged 5–17 in the province, at the district urban-rural stratum level.
Findings of the survey were released in January 2024.
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Summary of Key Findings
The key findings from the Child Labour Survey 2022 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan are:
Characteristics of the survey population
- Of the total child population, 57% fall within the age group of 5-11, 16.1% fall within the age group of 12-13, and 26.9% fall within the age group of 14-17.
- In the province, the number of boys exceeds that of girls, accounting for a total of 53%.
- The majority of this child population resides in rural areas, comprising a total of 88%.
- Girls are more likely to be married compared to boys. In the age group of 15-17, 7.9% of girls are married, while only 1.4% of boys are married in the same age group.
Children’s Activities
Schooling
- In the age group of 5-17, a higher percentage of boys (79.3%) attend school compared to girls (60.6%) in the same age group.
- Among children in the age group of 5-17, the number of girls who have never attended school is twice as high as the number of boys who have never attended school.
Household chores
- In the age group of 5-11, boys and girls have a similar share of household chores. However, as children grow older, a greater number of girls assume the responsibility of household chores compared to boys.
- Girls older than 11 are more likely than boys to engage in household chores.
- Girls not only have a higher frequency of involvement in housekeeping but also dedicate more time to household chores compared to boys across all age groups. The gap increases with age and in the age group 14–17, girls spend on average 11.9 hours per week on household chores, compared to 6.3 hours for boys.
- Boys and girls are involved in distinct types of household activities. Among boys aged 5-17, shopping for household items is the most common chore, accounting for 55% of their involvement. On the other hand, girls aged 5-17 more frequently engage in tasks such as cleaning utensils or the dwelling, with a participation rate of 47%.
Working children
- The occurrence of child labor was assessed during two different time periods: the last seven days and the last 12 months. In both cases, the percentage of working children rises as age increases. Among children aged 5-17, 12.3% reported engaging in work activities within the past 12 months, while 11.1% reported working in the last 7 days.
- Among children aged 5-17, most boys and girls are solely engaged in schooling rather than work. However, the percentage is notably higher for boys (70.0%) compared to girls (57.5%). On the other hand, girls are more likely to be neither working nor attending school (34.3% vs. 16.2%). Boys, in contrast, are three times more likely to be involved in both activities (9.2% vs. 3.0%).
Children in child labour
- In total, 9% of all children aged 5-17 in KP are in child labour. This amounts to 745,440 children 5-17 years old. The child labour incidence is higher for boys (11.7%) compared to girls (5.9%) and increases with age for both sexes. The highest child labour prevalence is in the age group 14–17 (15.5%), followed by children aged 10–13 years (10.9%) and children aged 5–9 years (5.3%).
- 11.1 percent of are working children; of which 80.9 percent are in child labour while 73.8 percent of them are working in hazardous conditions.
- From 14 – 17 years, 21.6 percent are working children and 15.5 percent are in child labour or hazardous work respectively.
- The majority of children engaged in child labour are also involved in hazardous work.
- Of them, 9.4% are working with hazardous tools, 15% are working in hazardous industries and occupations, 57.2% are working hazardous hours, 28.5% doing night work and 16.2% are facing abuse.
- The major four industries for child labour included agriculture, forestry and fishing at 51.6 percent; water collection at 19.1 percent; wholesale and retail trade at 9.7 percent and manufacturing at 7.7 percent.
Circumstances and causes of child labour
- The causes of children being in labour are multi-dimensional, these include, head of household having no or primary education only 44.7 percent, household being in the poorest wealth condition 31.8 percent, household being the beneficiary of BISP’s assistance 26.3 percent, migration of the head of household 14.6percent, and household losing at least one parent 6.6 percent.
Consequences of child labour
- For all age groups, the most reported negative consequence children in child labour face due to their work is extreme fatigue, a serious issue for children in their development process. For younger children, the second is injury or poor health and for older children, poor grades in school.
- Children involved in child labor are less likely to be currently attending school across all age groups. The disparity in school attendance rates becomes more pronounced as children grow older, particularly in the age groups of 12-13 and 14-17, where the school attendance rate is 13.8 and 19.3 percentage points lower, respectively, for children engaged in child labor.
- Injuries are much more prevalent among children in child labour compared to children not in child labour (57.6% vs. 13.4%).
Download
Read KP Child Labour Survey 2022 Full Survey Report
Read KP Child Labour Survey 2022 Key Findings Report
Read KP Child Labour Survey 2022 Info Graphics
Acknowledgements/Credits
(1) KP Child Labour Survey Report 2022, Directorate of Labour, Govt. of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Bureau of Statistics Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, UK International Development, UNICEF
