The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly has adopted a bill to ban forced child labour and it has also outlawed their work as domestic workers, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

The bill seeks a ban on the forced child labour and children under 14 years of age could not be hired as domestic workers in houses. The bill also seeks hiring of domestic workers in homes through appointment letters. 

The KP Assembly on Tuesday passed “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Home-Based Workers (Welfare and Protection) Bill, 2021 for the rights, responsibilities and difficulties faced by the domestic workers. 

Provincial Labour Minister Shaukat Yousafzai moved the home-based workers’ bill in the assembly. The bill prohibits employing children under 14 as domestic workers. It also bans forced child labour. Besides this, the authorities would issue an appointment letter for the employment for domestic workers in which the worker’s salary, mode of his/her payment of salary and nature of work will be specified. 

After the implementation of this law, every household master would give appointment letters to his domestic workers. The maximum working hours will be 8 hours a day. If a domestic helper wants to work for more hours, he could do so and he should be paid overtime. In this case, however, the total hours must not exceed 60 hours a week.

According to this bill, a household master will give a notice a month before he dismisses the domestic worker and the domestic worker will also be required to inform the master one month before he quits his job and the domestic worker’s monthly salary will be paid in full.

Reporter Azmat Ali Shah