KARACHI: From the age of 10, Amina has been scrubbing, sweeping and cooking in a middle-class home in Karachi. Like millions of children, she is a household helper, an illegal but common practice that brings grief to families often too poor to seek justice.
“Alongside my mother, I cut vegetables, wash dishes, sweep the floor and mop. I hate working for this family,” said the 13-year-old, who leaves her slum neighbourhood at 7am and often returns after dark. “Sometimes we work on Sundays even though it’s supposed to be our only day off, and that’s really unfair.”
One in four households in the country employs a child as a domestic worker, mostly girls aged 10 to 14, according to a 2022 report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Sania, 13, earns $15, roughly Rs4,300, a month helping her mother maintain a sprawling luxury home in the city, where she has been explicitly forbidden to speak to her employer’s children or touch their toys.
One in four households in Pakistan employs a child as a domestic worker, says ILO’s 2022 report
She gets half the salary of her mother for the same hours, together earning less than Rs15,000, far below the minimum wage of Rs40,000 ($140).
“I dreamed of finishing school and becoming a doctor,” said the eldest of five siblings who, according to the law, should be in school until the age of 16.
‘I know it’s immoral’
A university professor, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, employs a 10-year-old boy because children are “cheaper and more docile”.
“I know it’s immoral and illegal to employ a child, but at least he has a roof and is well fed here,” he said.
Hamza was sent by his parents to live with the professor in Karachi — a 450-kilometre journey from his impoverished village, to which he returns only a few times a year. His monthly salary of less than Rs10,000 is paid directly to his father.
“In the village, his poor parents would likely have sent him to the fields without even being able to feed him,” the professor said, while also acknowledging that he feels “uneasy” when his own children go to school and Hamza stays behind to clean.
There is no unified definition of a child or child labour in Pakistan, although a federal law prohibits children under the age of 14 from working in unsafe and hazardous environments, such as factories.
In Sindh, employing a child as a domestic help can lead to a maximum of one year in jail or a fine of up to Rs50,000. However, few are prosecuted.
Kashif Mirza from Sparc, one of the leading child rights non-governmental organisations, described it as a form of “modern slavery widely accepted in Pakistani society that makes them particularly vulnerable”.
“Society prefers to hire child domestic labour because they are cheap and more obedient, and employers make the argument that they are also safeguarding them, which is not true and illegal,” he told AFP.
‘I had no choice’
Iqra, a 13-year-old child worker, died in February from blows by her wealthy employers in Rawalpindi because chocolate had disappeared from their kitchen.
Her father, Sana, who said after her death that he would seek to prosecute the employers, instead told AFP that he forgave them.
“I had no choice. Where would I have found the money to pay legal fees? I already have more than Rs600,000 in debt,” he said. “There was also some pressure from the family’s relatives to pardon them, and I eventually agreed.”
He told AFP that he had not taken any money from the family and brought home his other two daughters and two sons after Iqra’s death.
“I stopped sending them because I cannot bear the thought of losing another child,” he said.
Burned with an iron
“The penalties are not strict enough,” for both employers and parents, said Sindh social affairs minister Mir Tariq Ali Talpur.
He said that authorities regularly conduct checks and take charge of young children employed illegally, but the courts often return them to their parents after a small fine. “That’s why these incidents keep happening again and again,” he said.
A Karachi couple accused of burning a 13-year-old domestic worker named Zainab with an iron was given bail for a fee of less than Rs30,000 each in September.
“I don’t understand how they could be free. Doesn’t anyone see Zainab’s injuries,” asked the teen’s mother Asia, pointing to severe burns on her daughter’s arms, legs, back and stomach.
Asia, who is pursuing the offenders legally, acknowledges that they are “rich and think they’re untouchable”.
“The poor like us have no power,” she said.
Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2025.
