Senate panel briefed on rights situation

Islamabad : The Ministry of Human Rights briefed the Senate Functional Committee on Human Rights about its performances and the overall situation of human rights in the country.

During a meeting chaired by Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, senior ministry officials said they had established homes and hostels for women and set up national child protection centre and national institute of human rights.

They said Rs438 million had been earmarked in the budget 2018-19 for the ministry's development projects and Rs300 million for non-development projects.

The officials said 26 training workshops were arranged on violence against children, while the 1099 helpline was created to provide suggestions to public against human rights violations and other forms of the violence.

They said over 11,970 calls were received and 10,400 cases were resolved.

The secretary of the National Commission Status for Women told the committee that a campaign was launched in different parts of the country to educate women about their right to vote.

The director general (mines) said 23 people had died in the recent mine tragedy in Quetta while so far 280 persons died and 68 workers received burn injuries.

He added Rs500,000 has been provided to each family of deceased from Workers Welfare Funds.

He said that over 100,000 workers were working in mines in Quetta while around 5,000 workers were registered and due to presence of untrained staff in rescue services, the workers' death rate is high.

The officials also informed the committee about the target killing of members of Hazara community in Quetta.

They said 3,000 Hazaras were killed, over 10,000 had troubled lives, while 90,000 had migrated to other cities or countries.