Pakistan fails to achieve goals for protecting child rights

Islamabad

Pakistan has remained far from achieving it national and international commitments with regards to promoting and protecting child rights in the country.

The overall analysis was shared by the experts and researches at the launching ceremony of the annual ‘State of the Children Report’ launched by Society for the Protection of the Rights of Children (Sparc) on Thursday. 

Sparc’s research team, Zohair Waheed, Marium Soomro and Fatima N Raja presented the findings of the 2015 report. The report quoted various national and international sources to reveal that 25 million children (aged 5-16) are out of school in Pakistan of which 13 million are girls. The situation is further compounded by lack of infrastructure and teaching staff along with poor teaching standards in public schools which forces more children to drop out.

The report also identified the increasing prevalence of violence against children in the country by presenting statistics regarding child marriages, honour killings and child sexual abuse etc in the country. According to the report, the total number of child sexual abuse cases stood at 3,768 cases in 2015; a rate of 10 cases every day.

The report finds it disheartening to see that only after the extreme tragedy in Kasur, did the government take serious action to protect the rights of child by enacting legislation. Furthermore, it says that approximately 21 per cent of girls in Pakistan are married before the age of 18 while 40 cases of acid attacks were reported against children in Acid Survivors Foundation.

The report revealed that on the front of child labour, the absence of an up to date database of child labour is a major hindrance in formulating policies and legislation that will work towards the elimination of child labour in Pakistan. Moreover, it stresses for urgent need to ensure the rights of these workers and to ban the employment of children in home-based industry and domestic sector.

With regard to health in 2015, it says that 54 cases of polio were reported from different parts of the country in comparison to 269 from the previous year however, children in Tharparker are still dying of acute malnutrition, starvation, and lack of basic health facilities bringing the death toll of children to 143 by the end of 2015.

The under five mortality rate was reported to be around 86 deaths per 100,000 births. The report says that these statistics show that when it comes to the progress of the government health sector, increased proactive measures must be taken to eliminate the various health crises afflicting the children of Pakistan.

It says that Pakistan missed its targets set under the Millennium Development Goals 2015. “It would not be wrong if we call them Missed Development Goals for Pakistan,” said Sparc Executive Director Sadia Hussain in her remarks.

Sadia demanded the government to immediately introduce a national level initiative on street children, enact all pending laws on children and arrange for effective implementation of these laws and become signatory of all international agreements on children. Canadian High Commissioner Heather Cruden also spoke on the occasion.