News Desk
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Iqra was just 12 years old when she left her home in Mandi Bahauddin, a small city in Pakistan’s Punjab province, to work as a domestic helper in Rawalpindi. Her monthly salary was 8,000 Pakistani rupees (about $28), a sum her family desperately needed. But her dreams of helping her parents were cut short last week when she died in a hospital, allegedly after being tortured by her employers.
Her death has cast a harsh light on the plight of Pakistan’s domestic workers, particularly children, who toil in unregulated and often exploitative conditions.
Iqra’s story began like that of countless other girls in Pakistan, where poverty forces families to send their children to work. According to UNICEF, an estimated 3.3 million children in Pakistan are trapped in child labor, many of them in hazardous conditions. For Iqra, this meant leaving her parents and siblings behind to work in the home of Rashid Shafiq and his wife, Sana, in Rawalpindi’s Asghar Mall area.
But what was supposed to be a chance to help her family turned into a nightmare. Last week, Iqra was rushed to Holy Family Hospital with critical injuries. Hospital sources confirmed that she had been severely beaten. Despite medical efforts, she succumbed to her injuries.
Police have since arrested her employers, charging them with murder and other offenses under Pakistan’s Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC). Authorities revealed that the couple had previously misled investigators by falsely claiming that Iqra’s parents were deceased.
“She was just a child,” said Iqra’s father, his voice breaking as he spoke to local media. “We sent her to work because we had no other choice. We never imagined this would happen.”
Iqra’s death is not an isolated incident. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), Pakistan has an estimated 8.5 million domestic workers, the vast majority of whom are women and young girls. Domestic work is one of the largest sources of employment in the country’s informal economy, yet it remains unregulated and excluded from labor protections.
A 2022 ILO study found that one in four Pakistani households employs a child in domestic work, predominantly girls between the ages of 10 and 14. These children often work long hours in unsafe environments, with little access to education or healthcare. Many, like Iqra, are vulnerable to physical and emotional abuse.
“Domestic workers, especially children, are invisible in the eyes of the law,” said Farah Naqvi, a human rights activist based in Islamabad. “They work behind closed doors, isolated from the outside world, and are often treated as property rather than human beings.”
Iqra’s death has sparked outrage across Pakistan, with activists and civil society groups demanding stricter enforcement of labor laws and greater protections for domestic workers. Social media has been flooded with tributes to Iqra, with many calling for justice and an end to child labor.
But for Iqra’s family, the pain is unbearable. Her mother, who asked not to be named, said she last saw her daughter a month ago. “She was so young, so full of life,” she said. “All she wanted was to help us. Now she’s gone, and we can’t bring her back.”
As the investigation into Iqra’s death continues, her story serves as a grim reminder of the vulnerabilities faced by millions of domestic workers in Pakistan. For now, her family clings to the hope that her death will not be in vain—that it will spark a movement to protect other children from suffering the same fate.
“Iqra’s life mattered,” her father said. “No child should have to go through what she did.” Agencies.
