Pakistan Bulletin
An up-to-date and informed analyses of key issues of Pakistan.
Climate's Collateral: Child Labour and the Hidden Costs of Climate Change in Pakistan
September 2024
As climate change intensifies, Pakistan faces a dual crisis: escalating environmental disasters and a troubling rise in child labour, where millions of children are caught in a cycle of economic necessity and human rights violations.
The Global South, with its present ongoing challenges of economic instability and climate volatility, faces the threat of increasing violations of human rights, especially against children belonging to households that are already crushed under the weight of climate change and rising inflation. In one of its major countries, Pakistan, child labour persists not merely as a social issue but as a deeply entrenched economic necessity. According to the latest Child Labour Survey in Pakistan (which was conducted in 1990), this structural violence in the form of financial exploitation and forceful employment shackles approximately 3.3 million children to lost opportunities, undermining their potential and perpetuating a cycle of hardship that affects not only them but generations to follow.
Despite its minimal contribution to global carbon emissions, Pakistan is disproportionately affected by climate-induced disasters and the slow violence of climate change. The devastating floods of 2022, which resulted in 1,700 deaths and affected 33 million people as reported by the National Disaster Management Authority in Pakistan, exacerbated pre-existing socio-economic vulnerabilities, particularly in rural and low-income areas. These climate events drive families to urban areas in search of better living conditions, where the reliance on child labour often increases as families face new economic pressures and child employment becomes the easiest source of income.
The broader impacts of climate change manifest in a cyclical detriment to Pakistan’s economy, particularly affecting the agricultural sector, which contributes to 24% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs 37.4% of the workforce, as the Pakistan Economic Survey reported in 2024. However, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, this sector harbours the highest ratio of child labourers, accounting for about 56% of the 14 million labourers nationwide. This significant portion of child workers is predominantly found in Punjab, where agriculture is a major economic activity and where traditional households often view child labour in the fields as normative. As poverty deepens, rural families increasingly rely on their children’s labour to meet basic needs, diverting attention from education and developmental opportunities to the immediate economic returns of child work. Climate change exacerbates this dynamic, as global warming and erratic weather patterns disrupt agricultural productivity, reducing yields and thus severely impacting those who depend solely on farming for their livelihood. Households teetering on the brink of poverty are forced to rely even more heavily on child labour as average incomes from agriculture dwindle. The slow-onset disasters induced by climate change render these households particularly vulnerable to economic shocks, lacking access to the institutional support and adaptive resources needed to mitigate these impacts, thereby exacerbating inequalities.
In Pakistan, over 3.3 million children are trapped in labour, driven by the harsh realities of climate change and economic instability.
One major consequence of climate change is the unpredictable changes in weather patterns, severely affecting farming practices. Unpredictable rainfalls, extreme droughts and floods damage crops or result in lower yields which cause farmers to switch locations of major crop types to those that suit the changing weather conditions. This, coupled with a lack of adaptive resources such as modern irrigation systems often result in farmers opting for the cultivation of crops that are more labour-intensive and are in locations where child labour policies are rarely implemented, causing children to be exploited into intensive labour practices.
The increased loss of fertile land and clean water causes forced displacements of populations resulting in individuals, especially children, being highly vulnerable to floods that arise due to changes in weather patterns and rainfall cycles. Sudden displacements can thus be a cause of disruptions of not just incomes but education attainment as well, as children are pulled out of schools and education remains low on the priority list for caregivers when the entire household is starving. Apart from this, mineral depletion, changes in water levels, and high instances of floods and droughts impede agricultural productivity which causes massive declines in agriculture yields. Relying on farming alone can significantly lower the income threshold of a household, resulting in a reduction of their adaptive capacity to climate shocks. A direct burden of this falls on the children of the migrated families who are forced to work in harsh and exploitative conditions to contribute to the household income. With minimal education and skills, children are susceptible to taking the first opportunities regardless of the working conditions or wage as long as it provides a source of income. This, coupled with rising food prices, causes families to use child labour as a buffer for shocks to prevent the household from falling into poverty.
Furthermore, another pressing concern is the heat stress in agricultural child labour that is recently worsening due to rising temperatures, causing children to be more vulnerable to dehydration and heat strokes. Minimum wage work often involves intensive targets to be met by workers which further increases the risk of heat-induced stress resulting in children who work in harsher conditions and for longer hours compared to before. Coupled with this, adult workers are often exposed to these conditions resulting in frequent health risks which causes the children to volunteer as substitutes to earn for the household. Workers being unable to perform in the extreme heat results in lower agricultural productivity which pushes the already vulnerable households further into poverty. Children often skip school to work earlier in the day in the fields to avoid working during extreme heat or work after sunset which poses them with threats of mosquito-borne diseases. This explains how some tasks that might have been considered safe before cannot qualify as such due to the external impact of the weather on children’s bodies.
Another consequence of low yield is farmers opting for higher dosages of pesticides and fertilizers to reduce exposure to harmful pests and increase production. These products contain harmful chemicals which when increasingly exposed in contact with developing human bodies can cause damage to health and childhood mental and physical development.
In addition to progressive changes in weather patterns impacting families, extreme climatic disasters can further increase the risk of vulnerability as floods can destroy schools, transportation, and health facilities. This results in families not only being cut off from basic resources, but children being pulled out of school, and households having to resort to child labour to rebuild the damaged infrastructure or afford the same standard of living. Damage to water infrastructure not only disrupts economic activity but affects livelihoods and future development as children face the brunt of spending more time travelling longer distances in the heat to secure water for the household. Apart from the destruction of resources and infrastructure, floods destroy farming equipment and livestock as well which further impacts a household’s resilience capacity as ownership of such assets can act as a disaster buffer shock or survival necessity in times of crises.
The intersection of climate-induced disasters and poverty exacerbates child labour, undermining the potential of future generations in vulnerable communities.
Child labour not only children’s mental development but physical development as well as the bodies of children being forced into employment from a younger age to suffer from early exhaustion and underdevelopment. Regardless of the availability of schools within rural areas, long working hours in agricultural fields prevent children from utilizing this resource or performing well in schools as most of their time and energy is spent in the fields. Therefore, it is important for child labour laws and policies to not only be strictly imposed but revised as well to take into account the added pressure of the changing climate on children in low-income areas.
Additionally, a ban on child labour should not be the only focal point of policymaking, rather, a multidimensional approach must be utilized to tackle the root causes of the issue. For example, education policies could be redefined to not only make schools accessible in terms of distance but also provide families with incentives (such as meals for children) to enrol and attend their children’s school. This would not only increase attendance rates by decreasing the burden on families of providing food to children but also provide necessary nourishment to children that might otherwise be not accessible to them. Secondly, the process of admissions and transfer for migrant students must be improved in terms of administrative processes and language barriers making it easier for them to transition without lags when enrolling in a new school. Alternative employment opportunities must also be created for climate disaster-affected adults which ensures that timely employment is accessible to households after disasters which reduces the likelihood of children being forced into employment.
It is imperative to address the multidimensional issue of child labour with an integrated policy design that takes into account the different aspects of households and systemic infrastructures and their relation to the increasing risks of climate change. Policy measures that are centred around poverty and social protection can prove to be substantially more effective in tackling the issue of climate-induced migrations and their impact on child labour in Pakistan. Only with a holistic approach can we get close to providing justice and a safer future for these children.
It is imperative to address the multidimensional issue of child labour with an integrated policy design that takes into account the different aspects of households and systemic infrastructures and their relation to the increasing risks of climate change. Policy measures that are centred around poverty and social protection can prove to be substantially more effective in tackling the issue of climate-induced migrations and their impact on child labour in Pakistan. Only with a holistic approach can we get close to providing justice and a safer future for these children.
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