Offices set up in all districts to protect children rights

LAHORE
OFFICES of District Child Commissioners have been set up in all districts of the province to safeguard the rights of the children below the age 18 years and district advisers concerned have been assigned to look after the offices.
It is responsibility of the state to protect the children’s rights to education, nutrition, shelter, adequate living standards and citizens must raise voice against violation of the same. Children, their parents or common citizens may send complaint to Chief Provincial Commissioner for Children or District Child Commissioner or inform on Helpline 1050 in case of child abuse, Punjab Ombudsman Javed Mahmood said.
Addressing a workshop on child rights in connection with 25th anniversary of United Nations Convention on Child Rights here Tuesday, Punjab Ombudsman Javed Mahmood said Pakistan, being signatory of the Child Rights Convention of General Assembly, was bound to implement the same but it was observed that children issues did not matter while formation of policies by the decision makers. National Commissioner for Children Ejaz A Qureshi said, ‘absence of willpower to resolve the issues leaves bad impact on children but they cannot express their feelings’. He said the Punjab Ombudsman Office was providing a platform to such children as they had serious constraints and could not come forward.
Shaheen Attiq-ur-Rehman said no one would come from outside to protect the rights of our children and we have to stand for that.
UNICEF Child Protection Officer Peta Gaye appreciated the outreach plan of the Punjab Ombudsman.
PHCs: Adviser to CM on Health Kh. Salman Rafiq has said the Monitoring and Evaluation System of the Primary Healthcare Centres has been introduced in the Health Department. He said that 172 monitoring and evaluation assistants had been recruited and posted throughout the province. He said these officials would monitor and evaluate the basic health units and rural health centres and submit reports to the Health Department.
He said this while addressing a ceremony of distribution of tablet computers among 172 monitoring and evaluation assistants at the office of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) at Arfa Kareem Tower, according to a handout issued on Tuesday. Chairman PITB Dr. Umar Saif, Director General PITB Aamir Chaudhry, Director Policy and Strategic Unit (PSPU) of Health Department Ali Bahadur Qazi and other officers were also present.
Commission: Pakistan People’s Party General Secretary Central Punjab Tanvir Ashraf Kaira has said that PML-N has no moral, legal and political excuse for not forming the Judicial Commission on PTI’s rigging allegations.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Kaira said the White Paper issued by PPP contained irrefutable evidence of electoral manipulations in the constituency and therefore it was imperative that the veracity of the allegations should be determined by a Judicial Commission of the Supreme Court.
Fair, free and impartial elections are the lynchpin of the democratic process, he maintained. He pointed out that the widespread allegations of riggings had put a question mark on the legitimacy of the Parliament and the government must address it, sooner than later. In the absence of such step, the inevitability of the political turmoil cannot be wished away, he added. He said such investigations were also the demand of the PPP that had been victimised in the May 2013 elections but accepted the results for the sake of the continuity of the political process.
Kaira stated that it seemed present government was itself a bigger threat to democracy because it had proved itself beyond any shadow of doubt of shooting into its feet with its own gun by creating back to back crisis of extraordinary nature having direct torturous bearings on the day-to-day life of the people.