Impact of Child Labour on the Psychosocial Development of Children at Bannu District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Child labor is one of the most paralyzing community issues which not only afflict our country but the world as a whole since it has a severe & adverse impact on the child’s psychosocial development. A sequential exploratory approach (QUAL+QUAN) was applied by the researcher to collect required data through a structured protocol of interviews of children, parents, and industrial sites in the five district councils of Bannu, followed by a survey in the form of a questionnaire from the school teachers. The study population consisted of all working children, parents, and primary school teachers, while the sample consisted of 100 working children (at work or had dropped out of their school or combined school & work of age 5-14 years), 100 parents and 100 PST teachers of the Bannu district. The sole objective of the study was: to investigate the impact of child labor on the psychosocial development of working children. NVIVO-10 supported by descriptive and inferential was used as a statistical tool to attain inclusive results. In the end, it was concluded that children who work, whether at school or combining school & work had to face a series of psychosocial development tribulations. Finally, a few recommendations were made by the researcher.


Introduction
Before going into details, let us know the concept of child labor. As seen in various child labour related publications, there is no settled definition of the term child labor. According to Convention 138 (ILO, 2008) "Child laborers are those children who lead a premature life as adults, they usually work for long hours in contrast to very low wages in very adverse conditions that not only harm their health but also their mental development". The word "child labor" actually refers to "work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity and is harmful to their physical, mental and social development" (ILO, 2004)". In other words, any kind of occupation that is physically, mentally, socially and ethically harmful to the child and that becomes a blockage to their schooling & divests them of the prospect to inter into a school or oblige them to do a job for a long time (ILO, 2004). This description of child labor is in line to a description of Bequele and Boyden (1988), which stated that "child labor refers to a condition in which a young person is involved in abusive and profitable actions that happen to be psychosocially, morally and physically dangerous (ILO, 1996)". Children are victims of a series of threats when they do not find food, protection, education, medical care and safety. UNICEF calls these children "children in crisis". Children's work has a special focus and the most essential issue that has been concentrated in the social environment. In hobbies, this topic was taken as an indication of fertility in society or as a result of industrialized innate insurrection. The existence of mechanical devices has provided the basis for the early induction of young people, since they can act as adults. This provided a strong use of children for profitable activities in the form of despicable labor (Department of Statistics, 2007). The ILO (2008)" predicted that "there are at least 351.7 million children working in the world". The Pakistani data office projected that "in 2007-08 the number of children who worked was 32.676". This showed the road to a latest study that revolves around the pessimistic effects of child labor, which has accused child labor of being detrimental to the "escalation, progress, child schooling & physical condition of children at work. Child labor is well thought-out one of the most important societal evils that have shaken the Pakistani community. Child labor has considered as physical & psychosocial and has effects on the health, growth and cognitive progress of the child. Furthermore, children find it difficult to make a decision between the benefits and risks of their functioning. Owing to restricted updates exploration on the brunt of child labor, this article will provide a healthier indulgence for the dilemma & would likely to improve our information on the physical &impacts of child labor in Pakistan. Furthermore, the existing physical impacts on child labor have limited attention in a small group of children at work or enclose a diminutive sample size that does not characterize the large populationof young people who work, which limits the perspective of a lay person the issue of child labor. Therefore, it was intensely necessary to combat exploitative child labor through education. After examining national and international studies related to child labor, there is an urgent need to conduct a dedicated study analyzing the impact of child labor, in particular the physical, & common blow on child development. Therefore, this article in question is an attempt to focus on this very complex issue and to present a better understanding of the child labor dilemma by exploring the nature and density of child labor in Pakistan and classifying the possible impacts of Childhood work since physical studies have not been explored and worked upon on this very issue (Banks, et al., 1997) and (National Research Council, 1998).
According to the Department of information report for the time 2012-13, "The number of Pakistani child workers was 3.3 million of the total 40 million Pakistan today has the world's third largest child labor total number of child workers in the province of Punjab it was about 19 lakhs". Also, the provincial distribution of the labor force clearly stated that "3/5 to (sixty percent) of all children working in Pakistan is involved in some kind of labour activities". Similarly, the child workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where about 10 lakh children have been engaged in activities related to child labor. In the same way, Sindh had 298,000 working children, while Baluchistan province has the lowest number of 14,000 due to limited information resources on child labor". On the other hand, the situation of education in our country is not up to par, the "Net Enrollment Rate (NER) during 2013-2014 barely reaches the figure of 57% which is very low in comparison with other neighboring and regional countries". In addition, the provincial comparison reveals that "in this regard, Punjab showed a slight improvement and NER slightly improved to 64% in 2013-14 compared to 62% in 2012-13, while the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa NER has not progressed appreciable and remained 54%". "Although Sind's NER fell to 48% in the year 2013-14, it was 52% in 2012-13". Likewise, "the Baluchistan NER was reduced to 39% in 2013-14, as it was 45% in 2012-13". "At the national level, the total number of registrations of children in schools in the period 2013-2014 was recorded at 42.1 million, equal to 41.1 million in the same period 2012-13. This indicates an increase in view of 2.4%. Therefore, it is estimated and expected to increase to 43.4 million in 2014-15" (Malik, 2013-14).

Impact of Child Labour
The impact of employment "on children's physical condition can either be constructive or destructive (Woodhead, 2004) because it mostly relies on the temperament of the employment done by children. Therefore, the nature of the vocation is based on the type of danger as a result of the vocation. Consequently, the vocation is considered constructive if the vocation does not influence physical health, growth and does not affect attendance or enrollment of children in the school. Such activities are not only useful and creative but necessary for their social adjustment as well. Such activities may in either be in the form of supporting their parents at home or at workplaces in the school holidays or free days, which at its climbing and growth capacity adds to the development of social identity and offers children the extra familiarity with how to lead a useful life in future " (ILO, 2004)". Bashiman (2000 also said that "if a child feels a job or work he/she is doing is beneficial and do not affect his/her schooling, then surely this will create a positive conscience in him/her regarding his/her vocation". Previous studies have shown that "45% of working children feel independent at all, 36% felt a sense of responsibility, 35% had improved their income, 31% had learned a job and 28% had created new friendships at their workplaces" which clearly indicates the usefulness of child labor (Abu Hamdan, Center for Information and Research of Personnel, 2005).

Psychosocial Impact of Child Labour
A series of national and international research focuses mainly on the physical effects of child labor, and have completely abandoned the psycho-social impact of child labor. Boyden, Leng and Mayers (1998) stated that "children at work are also exposed to psychological and social risks rather than physical risks, the reason being that children do not have much physical power and the right to do their job, so that work is over and over again is not seen as creative and is at the lowest levels of all employees" (Woodhead, 1998). In a study in Ethiopia, the impact of child labor on the psychological and mental health of breeding was determined through a sample of 258 children working from 5 to 15 years, working in their homes, streets, hotels, restaurants and shops, compared to 4472 non-working schoolchildren. The results showed that "working children have had more problems of anxiety and stress than children who do not work". The study also found that "psychological and behavioral trauma is observed mainly in children who work in contrast to children who do not work". (Fekaday, et al., 2006). As we know that child labor affects pessimistic children to get a better idea of their behavior in public, in Matalqa (2004), conducted a study of 104 children working on the streets of Jordan, who used to sell chewing gum, cookies or collection recycling materials. The study should investigate the fact that these children who are on the street have an impact on children's health and the fulfillment of society. The study concluded that "these children at work have low regulation skills, high physical health and are likely to use common behaviors with strong surplus". Dmour (2006) argued that "smoking, harsh language, alcohol use and contact with inhalants are irresponsible behavior especially among children in the workplace" (Turk, 2000).

The Impact of Children's Work on Children's Academic Outcomes
The debate on child labor is fundamentally linked to children's rights to education and their academic achievement. Efforts deny education and open the way for an opportunity to enter a higher profession. The second aim of the MDGs for 2015 suggests that "all children have the right to complete their compulsory basic education, which can be achieved by excluding child labor or through the proper implementation of educational systems". This suggestion is incredibly noticeable, as it offers a plan not to allow kids to departfrom their institutions, which will ensure higher career prospects in the outlook & eliminate the shortcomings in these societies. The ILO (2008) reported that "the most common reasons to leave are poverty, low academic performance and parents' awareness of children's education". The number of studies showed that "there is a negative impact of child labor on education" (Heady, 2000;Sanchez, 2002;Mathews and Iacopino, 2003). At the same time, Heady (2000) conducted a study in Ghana in 2000 to examine the effect of child labor on children's academic performance and found that "the educational achievements of children who occupy a profession and study at the same time are minor as compared to children who have just studied. The researcher recognized that the low school performance of the collapse, the lack of follow-up and the desertion of children" (Heady, 2000). The outcome, of"Sánchez (2002)"described that "the academic performance in Mathematics and tongues of children at work was lower than that of non-working children, and educational institutions had pessimistic results on children's psychological wellbeing of children at work". " Mathews and Iacopino (2003)" research showed that, "a 13-year-old girl at work told me that when I see children of the same age going to school, I personally think that I wandered a bit and I think badly about myself and my perspective is destined to improve when we go to any educational institution". Other studies have shown that "child labor increases the illiteracy rate and that girls' education levels have a significant impact on offspring". Because few of the uneducated parents send their children to school, the problem of child labor is likely to worsen, which provides an increase in service opportunities for children and this shows the way to the persistence of this crisis among these people (Parker & Bachman, 2001;Omokhodoin and Uchendu, 2010).

Study Objectives
The lonely objective of the study is: 1-To examine the impact of child labor on the psychosocial development of children at work.

1-How does child labor impact psychosocially on children at work? Methodology
The researcher used a sequential exploratory design study to collect the data required by working children who do not work using a multi-step approach. Information concerning the physical and psychosocial health of the child was collected through structured questionnaires. The data are collected mainly on their own or by a colleague of the job sites and corresponding schools in the district of Bannu. The populations of this study were all children who were at work (reading in schools, left the schools or combined school and work) of the age 5 to 14 years. More preciously there were 992 child workers, 992 parents of child workers &2939 Primary School Teachers of the Bannu district constituted the population of the study. The study sample included 100 working children (reading in schools, left the schools or combined school and work) of the age 5 to 14 years, 100 parents and 100 PST Teachers of Bannu District. First, a letter of approval was obtained from the parent department, DEO Bannu, and randomly selected schools were contacted to arrange an appointment to collect data. A class has been randomly selected from each level. The forms of consent were given to children randomly selected from levels. The covering letter posed parents to sign the consent form for the participation of the children in the study. The consent is made in two phases: 1-Consent to join in1 st phase includes conducting the psychosocial interview on health, 2 and then, another form sent to those who have accepted and signed the first module approves the involvement of children in the 2 nd phase, which includes the objective of the study. The consent form includes information related to the purpose of the study, its importance for the child's health and cognitive development. If the randomly selected children did not have their family's agreement, a new kid was chosen on the spot. The procedure persistent till the desired sample size was reached. Researchers have clarified the research objectives for children, parents and teachers in a way consistent with their age and stage of mental level. Data were gathered through the interview conducted by the investigator, who worked to formulate the question and complete the form. Children aged 10 to 14 completed the form independently in the presence of researchers, while those who did not do it themselves were compiled by their parents or their elders. Then, the research with her partner returned to school &circulated the consent form to the children who contributed in the first phase to get their tutor approved to participate in phase two. The investigator returned to school on the date and time set up with the school head to perform the medicinal examination and take blood samples from children who have been approved by their families. The medical test was performed by a competent pediatrician / family doctor. After completing all the requisite data compilation of the work of the test or medical trial, data was then entered into the SPSS-24 statistical program (Al-Kayyali, 2006).

Study Tools
To achieve the objectives of this study, a survey was designed to meet the objective of the study. The survey included multiple measures that included all aspects related to psychological aspects of children.

Data Analysis
After compiling the data using the mentioned study's design, the statistical program (SPSS-24) was used to perform an in-depth statistical analysis. Descriptive Statistic was utilized to know the about the children's psychological and social development of the respondents by comparing their results. Similarly inferential statistics like ANOVA, T-Test, and Chi square was applied to know the differences among the children, while Pearson co-relation coefficient (r) found the corelation among the study's variables on significant value 0.05.

Psychosocial Development Concerns
Because of psychological & social disquiets, the investigation declares that there were a noteworthy amount of kids who do not work at school and suffer psychological & social hitches. The study illustrates that 24% of them suffer from loneliness, 27% from depression, 36% from problems at home, 24% from problems with the employer, 14% from problems with the law and about 44 % spends most of the time alone. However, 87% of children reported having close friends, which is considered a positive indicator for social well-being. Regarding psychological and social concerns, the analysis showed that among the children who do not work, about 32.8% of children suffer from loneliness, 22.8% suffer from depressive feelings, 30.9% have problems at home, 26.6%% have problems in schools and less than 5% have problems with the law of the home. In social terms, about 89% of children reported having a close friend. However, there is a certain contradiction in the relationships of children. While 89% reported having close friends, about 51% reported having suffered from loneliness that can be interpreted and linked to the psychosocial problems that children brought home and to school, which could affect their feelings of solitude. Regarding the psychosocial and social concerns of children who work during the holidays and those who work and study at the same time, the results were almost similar to those of children who do not work and those who do not work in school. The analysis showed that about 40% of children felt lonely and 36.5% had depressed feelings, 38.3% had problems at home, 34.6% had problems at school and 9% had problems at home & with the law. In addition, about 89% of children said they had close friends, 69.7% of them said they always had close friends. In addition, and like children who do not work and do not work at school, 60% of children said they spent almost time alone. This leads to the conclusion that children of this age group feel lonely and psychologically disturbed because of problems at school, at home and with the law, although they have close friends.

Risk Behavior
The findings demonstrated that 43 percent of the children were smokers, of them 19.1 percent were always habitual of smoking, while 82 percent were victim to drugs abuse, 95 percent were used to live in their families &were not even using any kind of toxic things. 38 percent of the children said "that their parents are smokers. As 79 percent of children told the destructive consequences of smoking & alcohol, whereas 39.6 percent told that they have been up dated of these hurtful upshots. Relating to the use of drugs, (97.3 percent, n = 948) told that they have not used no kind of drug and that (1.6 percent, n = 16 children) used this drug. Similarly the findings to risky behavior amongst the children who do not work were not satisfactory, say for example 5 percent of the children admitted smoking, where 2.7 percent were occasional smoker &2.3 percent were of the opinion of often smoke. Moreover, the findings illustrate that 14 percent of the children are habitual of toxic substances not told by any general practitioner & 2.1 percent of children told that my parent used to drink toxic medicines. On the other hand, 49 percent of children told that our parents are cigarette smokers while 56 percent of the children told that they have enough knowledge about the hurtful consequence of those who are using alcohol. This in hand research moreover clarified that "1.5 percent, n = 26 children of the kids told they are habitual of using toxic substances, furthermore even though this proportion is quite minute but the detrimental consequences are very broad". Moreover, approximately 15.4 percent of the working children use toxic are substances. Approximately 2.7 percent of them disclosed the fact that our father/mother is habitual of using toxic substances while 49 percent of these children disclosed the fact that our father/mother is habitual of using cigarettes. Nevertheless, 60.70 percent of kids disclosed that we not aware of the damaging causes of smoking habits or any kind of toxic substances, similarly 2.7 percent told that they are habitual of using many toxic substances like such hashish & marijuana, which is one of most upsetting dilemma of the children at work.

Difference among Worker and Non-Worker Children in Physical and Psycho-Social Development
From many reviews and also from these study findings it is visible that there is quite significant difference amongst the working and non-working children regarding their psychosocial development and approach. The children who are at work are almost victim to a number of using toxic substances in relation to those children who are enrolled in schools and do not do any kind of work. The working children often law breakers and do not co-operate to any law-making agencies at all. In the process they not become prey to bad companies but also engaged in many societal criminal activities. On the other hand, school going children not only became good and useful citizen but also help in preventing those who become mean to law making agencies and organization as well.

Summary of the Study
All the earlier studies clearly declared that child labour is indeed one of the most distressing agents of bringing children into labour market prematurely. It not only psychologically impacts child development but, has adverse impacts on child's psychosocial, moral and social development as well. Amongst many other distressing pulling and pushing factors, poverty is indeed one of the biggest and prime factors of causing child labour around the world. These studies have found the lonely & unique solution to this problem in the shape of education. They also have a common view point and agreed on a well spayed standardized educational system, the only alternative and a barrier to the curse of child labour. These research studies have identified that child labour not only deprive child of their basic right of Compulsory Primary Education but, also have long term hazardous effects on the child's physical, psychological, moral and psychosocial development. Though the study has a small size but their results can be generalized to a society in a whole.

Conclusion
The study's result identified clearly that work has direct relationships to colds, flu, and general infections in children. Because most of the non-school work children have complained of a headache, nuisance and irritant like problems. The results very match to earlier research whose findings illustrated that the children at job have noteworthy psychosocial tribulations, like mental abnormality, deformity, warp and misshapenness. However, children who do not work not have too much of psychosocial problems. Also, psychosocially the results revealed that children who work at school have significant psychosocial disorders. While 25% of children working in the school reported feeling lonely and depressed, 15% of them also reported problems at home, at work, in obeying law and regulations. Children who work only have higher levels of psychosocial problems in comparison to non-working children, like "colds, flu, skin lesions and dental tribulations" more common than children who do not work and only having admissions in school. However, non-working children have had the highest ratio of psychosocial problems among all groups of children. Children who work in the school have had not only higher levels of physical problems such as colds, flu, skin lesions and dental problems but also have much more problems such as mental abnormality, deformity, warp and misshapenness than children who do not work while they are reading at school. Another explanation is related to the home and school, as children have reported frequent problems both at school and at home. Children should receive love and care at school and at home, but in reality, they are struggling with problems that increase the likelihood that these children find other sources and involve risky behaviors such as drugs and crime. Child laborers suffer from severe psychosocial problems such as loneliness, depression, social isolation and problems at home, at school, with the police and the law. About 45% of the children in this study reported that they are smoking, 20% are not using prescription drugs and 2.5% are using drugs. This is consistent with the previous study by Dmour (2006), which found that smoking and alcohol are among the most important delinquency and risk behaviors among working children. Therefore, there must be an effective national plan that eliminates child labor, which is one of the main reasons for drugs, alcohol and smoking among children. Moreover, more awareness related activities and debates should be organized on the community and state level to pull out the engaged children in labour in the educational arena. These programs should target children and families and use public media and communication methods to raise awareness. According to the findings of the study 45% of working children are smokers, 20% do not use prescription drugs and 2.5% use drugs, 45% of working children are smokers, and 20% do not take drugs and 2.5% use drugs. In addition, about 15% of men who work children reported having sex with girls and 40% have access to pornography, which makes working children highly at risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, (Department of Health, 2004). Therefore, it can be concluded that the child's work has deprived the children of receiving appropriate education and of receiving a social and psychological guidance of good behavioral patterns. Children who work are isolated from their families, lack a family monitoring system, lack of information sources and do not receive education on behalf of risk-related behaviors, which increases their vulnerability to physical and psychosocial problems and disorders. As mentioned earlier, children who do work and not at school have higher percentages of psychosocial problems that emphasize the role of school and home as a source of guidance and protection against risky behavior. Therefore, schools and homes should not be just the mean of food and shelter, but should provide sufficient guidance, assistance, direction and track with well organized educational environment that allows and guarantee the growth and development of children and provide quality education, suitable psychological assistance in making good social relationships not only to their colleagues, society and enhance their bio-psychosocial and mental skills and abilities very much needed by a child in the society.

Recommendations
Following was some of the recommendations of the study: 1-It is urgently needed to provide appropriate medical treatment to the children engaged in labour, either they are in reading schools or have gone off their schools. 2-More comprehensive hard work is needed in creating alertness amongst common people, particularly with illiterate regarding the significance of children and their education to continue their schooling, rather than to the workplaces and industries by providing their parents sufficient financial supports. 3-More emphasis is needed on behalf of the educational system, on the school, at the societal level and at the state or individual level to sort out solutions not only to increase literacy rate but to stop the ever increasing rate of dropout rate of children from their educational institutions.4-The curricula and the school environment should take into account more than anything the child needs mentally and emotionally to overcome these types of problems.5-Schools must develop the ability and skills of their teachers to use proper instruction approaches to boost up their potentialities &motivate them to get their education. 6-Curriculum developer, stakeholder and policy makers should use all their energies to create most convincing and attractive educational environment to children by providing all basic needs & facilities of education to the children at their doorsteps and stop all forms of child labour.7-Further Researchers have to conduct a more detailed qualitative study regarding the fact why children leave their schools immaturely and the reasons they prefer to start working. 8-Parents and children should be included in this type of activity-related studies for children.

9-
Public, non-governmental, national and organizations should get collectively to eliminate child labor and propose practical and more comprehensive solutions for families, employers and society. 10-There should be a review of all existing laws and regulations related to child labor to make them effective, practical and more helpful especially for child laborers. This requires the collaboration of all parties (individual, family and state). Also, they should more concerned about the negative impact of child labor on the child's health or cognitive development, whenever they plan, implement or organize programs and laws related to this type of activity.