The Express Tribune Editorial 21 November 2019

Child labour

In Pakistan, 33% children are underweight, 44% stunted, 15% wasted, and 37% illiterate. Given these grim statistics, the Balochistan Assembly’s unanimous resolution calling for the provision of quality education and nourishment to children and taking measures to prevent child labour and abuse can only be welcome. The country’s Constitution and labour laws prohibit employing children below the age of 14. According to a survey carried out in 1996, the number of child labourers in Pakistan is 3.3 million. However, the Human Rights of Commission of Pakistan estimates this number at 10 million. Ten million children forced by their circumstances to work to support their families is a figure enough to jolt the conscience of those at the helm. Many of these child labourers are engaged in hazardous work. Though no survey has been conducted after 1996, experts estimate the number of child labourers has increased in Pakistan contrary to the global declining trend.

Article 35 of the Constitution of Pakistan gurantees the rights of the child. Pakistan is also a signatory to the UN Convention of 1990 on child protection and security. Speaking on the resolution in the Balochistan Assembly, a female legislator expressed concern over the increasing number of rape and child abuse cases. She said the basic purpose of the resolution was to give a clear message that the entire nation stood united against such kind of abominable practices. We hope the resolution and speeches do not turn out to be the usual high-minded declarations of platitudes coming from politicians showing concern for the plight of the downtrodden and stressing the need for improving their lives. We would like to see them translated into action. Charles Dickens, who himself had to work from childhood, writes in his novel Great Expectations, “In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice.” Children feel injustice acutely.

Tax collection target

The IMF’s refusal to reduce the annual tax collection target for the ongoing fiscal year must be worrying for the government — and the people too. As confirmed by FBR Chairman Shabbar Zaidi, the government last month asked the Fund to allow a Rs300 billion cut in the tax collection target for FY20 — to Rs5.2 trillion from an ambitious Rs5.5 trillion. While the IMF has refused the requested downward revision, the FBR chairman has told the Senate’s Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue during a recent appearance that he is optimistic the government will be able to bring around the global lender.

The FBR is doing a good job under Shabbar Zaidi, but not good enough to meet what is perceived by experts as an unrealistic target. The ongoing economic slowdown, done mainly through import compression, makes the target even more difficult to achieve, as cut in imports means cut in duties and a shortfall in overall revenue collection. According to provisional estimates, the FBR has collected Rs1.28 trillion in taxes in the July-October period of the ongoing fiscal year as against the target of Rs1.447 trillion, thus falling short of its four-month target by Rs167 billion. Going by this rate, the shortfall for the full fiscal year comes to something around Rs668 billion.

And the question that looms ahead of the IMF’s executive board meeting next month to decide the release of the second tranche of the Rs6.6 billion package is how the government is going to bridge up the revenue shortfall. While there is all the likelihood that the second tranche, worth $450 million, will be pocketed by the government, there are apprehensions that it is not going to happen without a caution from the Fund. We wish Zaidi good luck as regards his optimism to convince the IMF to reduce the tax collection target. But what if this optimism proves misplaced and the government is forced to take steps, like bringing in a minibudget, to plug the financial hole? In such an event, what the government can do the least is to bolster the social safety net so as to protect the poorest of the poor, at least.

Israeli settlements

For decades, the US kept calling Israel’s settlements in the West Bank illegal while doing absolutely nothing to stop them and, arguably, stopping others from intervening. The rhetoric appears to have finally caught up with the actions. From a practical perspective, the change is meaningless. The peace process has been dead for the past 20 years — far-right Israeli PMs Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu made it brutally clear during their tenures that Israel intends to eventually annex its West Bank settlements by force. For background, Israel first took control of the West Bank from Jordan as a result of the War of 1967. Since then, it has maintained military control over the territory. Although Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory, says “the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”, Israel began building illegal settlements in the region almost immediately.

In 1978, US President Jimmy Carter issued a memo calling the settlements “inconsistent with international law”. This memo has been official US policy since then. Even administrations that opposed it did not formally change it until Secretary of State Mike Pompeo officially repudiated it. He reasoned that calling the settlements inconsistent with international law has not brought peace and that because there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, it is unnecessary. But no one in their right mind thought that declaring the settlements “illegal” would magically get rid of them and bring peace, or that there would be an internationally imposed settlement. The point always was that the settlements are a major barrier to peace. Israeli security around the settlements cuts off Palestinian communities and makes economic development impossible for them. Meanwhile, the settlers, many of whom are now quite influential, oppose any peace deal that would create a viable Palestinian state because this would force them to leave their illegally-occupied properties.