Child Labour Income

Child workers, despite long working hours, receive pitiably low income, substantially less than minimum wages. They, for instance, get one-third of minimum salary in Brazil, while in Nepal they get either a dollar or even less for a day's work. The children gel three dollars weekly in Indonesia for their 8-hourly daily work in electric bulbs, while the same amount is received for 10 hours of daily work for five days in Zimbabwe. The lower wages for the same amount of work from children can be seen also from the match and fireworks industry of Siwaski in India. 

The children are 15 percent of the total workforce in this industry, and their replacement by the adults would raise the cost by 32 million Indian rupees. In fact, employers there had threatened to go for sub-contracting if efforts are made to replace the child labour.

Source: Poverty Alleviation in Pakistan: Present Scenario and Future Strategy, Mohibul Haq Sahibzada. Republished with permission.