State of human rights report launched

LAHORE
THE 2014 state of human rights report compiled and issued by Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) was launched in a ceremony here Friday.
Expressing concern over the deaths of innocent civilians, the HRCP has stated that with a series of faith-based assaults on religious minorities and the massacre of young students in APS Peshawar that led to the highest death toll in a terrorist attack in the nation’s history, instances of gruesome violence against the most vulnerable segments of society have increased.
The HRCP annual report has however stated that the year of 2014 did throw up the occasional ray of hope. One of these was women’s active participation in political protests, and adoption of certain laws aimed at empowering women, including the Punjab Fair Representation of Women Act. At least in some parts of the country, under-age marriage was outlawed and it is important to note criminalised domestic violence.
The provincial governments increased the minimum wages of unskilled workers, although the extent of the raise did not come up to workers’ expectations, the HRCP report observed.
The Peshawar school attack in December seemed to have created consensus against bands of thugs of all hues who had been exploiting the religious banner. The government discovered some resolve to restore its writ in the tribal areas and launched military operation against extremist militants. Yet pressing human rights concerns and worrying trends made for a much longer list. Horrific acts of terrorism and sectarian violence continued to ravage the country. Attacks on religious minorities encroached into areas where they had been largely absent hitherto and the government failed to take measures to reassure the citizens that it had the ability or the commitment to clamp down on faith-based violence.
Extrajudicial killings, unlawful and arbitrary detention, custodial torture and enforced disappearance continued. Well over two million internally displaced persons, most of them women and children, had to leave their homes in search of safety and joined multitudes of others who had been displaced in earlier bouts of armed conflict between the security forces and militant extremists.
A proliferation of instances of the so-called honour killing, rape, acid attacks, domestic violence and assaults against women was evident. Infants bore the brunt of the prolonged drought in Tharparkar, where over 650 paid with their lives for the apathy in high places.
For another year, Pakistan lagged behind most Asian countries in educating a significant proportion of its children, especially girls. The healthcare system, already among the weakest in South Asia, continued to deteriorate at a fast pace. Targeted attacks on healthcare workers and their security escorts posed a serious challenge to what some already considered Pakistan’s losing battle against polio. In 2014, the high incidence of polio in Pakistan broke the country’s own previous record. Child and bonded labour remained rampant and labourers, including children, continued to work in hazardous conditions. With the murder of 14 media practitioners, the country, especially the Balochistan province remained among the most dangerous places in the world for journalists. Housing for the poor remained a major challenge with disasters like floods putting a great strain on an already inadequate housing situation. Amid pressure to crack down on militants in the wake of the Peshawar school attack, the government championed military courts and lifted a de facto moratorium on the death penalty and hurriedly hanged seven convicts by the year end.