Media role sought in child rights protection

LAHORE

A coalition of 100 civil society organisations working for promotion and protection of children’s rights in Punjab urged media to play effective role in creating child-friendly legislative environment to ensure protection of children.

This was demanded during an orientation meeting for media on state of children’s rights in Punjab held here Friday.

Provincial Coordinator of an NGO Rashida Qureshi said that media should promote government accountability for not being prioritising the children issues. She stressed that media should aware citizens about Pakistan’s international obligations under United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child (UNCRC), Sustainable Development Goals and recommendation accepted by the government under Universal Periodic Review 2012. She demanded the provincial government to devise mechanism and strategy to ensure implementation of international commitments.

Child Rights activist Iftikhar Mubarik highlighted that the issue of development and adoption is still unaddressed as the mandate to deal with child protection issues in a holistic way is not determined yet. 

Besides occurrence of number of incidents in which child domestic labourers suffer violence even in many cases they were murdered but still the government was not able to come up with comprehensive plan to deal with issue, which is a serious matter of concern for civil society, he said.

uplift schemes: The Punjab government Friday approved three development schemes of different sectors at an estimated cost of Rs 2956.014 million.

The schemes were approved in the 74th meeting of Provincial Development Working Party (PDWP) of current fiscal year, 2016-17, presided over by PD Chairman Muhammad Jahanzeb Khan.         

The approved development schemes are: Construction of Underpass on Sheikhupura-Gujranwala Road and Sheikhupura-Hafizabad Road, Sheikhupura, at a cost of Rs 1,284.600 million; Construction of Waste Water Treatment Plants at South West (Babu Sabu) and Northeast (Mehmood Booti NE-I and Shadbagh NE-II), Lahore, (PC-II) at a cost of Rs 41.570 million and Dulization of road from Chunian to Jamber Morr (N-5), length-21 km, Kasur district, at a cost of Rs1629.844 million.