50 percent children out of school due to poverty

Around 50% of children in Pakistan are out of school due to poverty, lack of infrastructure and social mindset.

The alarming statistics were shared by experts and media persons at a seminar on ‘Promotion and Protection of Child Rights’ organised by the Ministry of Human Rights in collaboration with Unicef. Participants of the seminar discussed the state of child rights in Pakistan and the role different stakeholders could play to improve the situation.

They were of the view that there are a number of laws in the country regarding protection of child rights, but there is little implementation due to which a huge population of children is suffering. The participants stressed that health, education, healthy nutrition and suitable living environment are the basic rights of children and the state is responsible for providing these rights to children.

They shared shocking statistics and expressed disappointment over the state structure that fails to identify and solve the issues that lead to the worsening situation of child rights. The speakers pointed out that there are some tribal areas where the percentage of out of school children is 97 to 98%.

Child rights activist Anis Jilani from Society for the Protection of the Rights of Child (Sparc) said that Pakistan is one of the few countries where child labour is increasing. He termed the big proportion of out of school children as one of the major reasons for this increase. “I think that such huge population of out of school children is the biggest problem of our country,” he said.

Anis discussed in detail the legislation done so far for children and said that slow process of the enactment of those laws and lack of implementation reflects how important children are for the policymakers. “Pakistan signed United Nations Convention on Child Rights in 1990, but the situation of children in Pakistan remained precarious and nothing significant has been done to implement the convention.” He said that 400,000 children under age five die every year in the country and only 34 per cent boys and 26 per cent girls manage to get secondary education. He mentioned that Pakistan has a comprehensive law on child trafficking, but it deal with only international human trafficking whereas most of the children are trafficked within the country.

Parliamentary Secretary Rubina Saadat Qaimkhani said that the present government is committed to take effective measures to end violence against children. She said the establishment of parliamentary forum for protecting child rights is a milestone in this regard.

Journalist and anchor Mohammad Malick said that child rights issues are at the low priority because children are not voters. He suggested vocational training for children at primary level and stressed on the need for organising, educating and motivating children about these issues so that they could contribute to improving the child rights situation in the country.

Director General Child Rights at the Ministry of Human Rights M H Mangi shared the details of the proposed National Commission on Child Rights with participants. He said that the Ministry of Human Rights is committed to establishing the commission which would be independent, representative of all provinces and have the power to identify and address child right violations in the country. He said that the commission will also have representation of children.

Mangi said that the ministry has submitted the first-ever law on child pornography to the Ministry of law and also suggested to increase the age of criminal responsibility.

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) CEC Member Chaudhry Manzoor Hussain called for combining all laws which deal with child rights.

While addressing the seminar, chief guest Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira said that the media has an important and sensitive role in projecting awareness campaigns. He pointed out that the media should focus on highlighting the miseries of the neglected rural and poor population of society, especially children.

(2012-07-18/thenews)