Two people – a woman and her daughter – were arrested on Monday in the murder of a 16-year-old domestic worker in Lahore.
According to the police, the women killed the minor domestic worker – Uzma — on January 18 in Iqbal Town and dumped her body in a nearby drain.
The woman got angry at the young woman when she ate a bite of food from her daughter’s plate. In her anger, she hit Uzma on the head with a steel dish multiple times and killed her.
The incident came to light at first on social media, after which the media caught on and then the higher authorities.
Amber Shamsi, the host of SAMAA TV’s programme Sawaal comments on how cases of violence against domestic workers are usually ignored and mainly only highlighted on social media.
She said it is common to find minors employed in Pakistani households as domestic workers. They are often scolded on tiny issues and beaten up, said Shamsi.
“You will find children picking up your child’s school bag and carrying it till the car,” she said, adding that these children are deprived of education.
Shamsi questions the rampant rise in child labour across the country and asks the public to consider where they are going wrong on an individual level.
“These children also have the same innocent wishes as your own children,” she tells parents.
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