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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Call to protect child rights

By Our Correspondent
November 21, 2018

LAHORE As the world is celebrating Children’s Day by empowering and strengthening children, Pakistan is still struggling with various issues associated with the rights of a child and protection of their well-being.

Pakistan has seen a staggering higher numbers of child abuse cases since last year, according to the Child Protection Bureau in 2017, 3,445 cases were registered in which 2,077 cases reported abuse on girls and 1,368 cases on boys. The highest number of sexual abuse cases was reported from Punjab which constitutes about 63 percent.

In the first six months of this year, 2,322 child abuse cases were reported in various newspapers and this number kept on increasing. AGHS Legal Aid Cell, Asma Jahangir’s organisation has recommended child rights issues to be raised not only on provincial but also on federal level to build up a systematic data to understand the number of abuse occurrences. It is important to sensitise the law enforcement authorities and the prison staff to deal with the increasing number of children’s cases with empathy and give them their due protection as guaranteed under the Constitution of Pakistan and other numerous laws.

AGHS legal aid emphasized on the importance of establishing separate juvenile courts for the young offenders. It also recommends that the Juvenile Justice System Act (JJSA) 2018 should be implemented in its true perspective. Most importantly all the legislation addressing matters of children should have a uniform age of 18 to define a child. This will be in conformity with the UN Conventions as well as the Constitution of Pakistan.

violence: A panel of children had an interactive dialogue with Punjab Minister for Human Rights Ijaz Alam, MPAs Mrs Sumaira Ahmed and Mrs Musarrat Jamshed Cheema. They demanded legal and policy reforms to ensure protection of children from various forms of violence. The event was jointly held by NGOs, Ministry of Human Rights and Human Rights & Minority Affairs Department to mark Universal Children’s Day.

Rashida Qureshi shared that November 20th is an important date as it is the date in 1959 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Child Rights Activist Iftikhar Mubarik said that since 1990, Universal Children's Day also marks the anniversary of the date that the UN General Assembly adopted both the declaration and the convention on children's rights.

Laiba Khan, a child participant, urged the provincial government to enact legislation to prohibit corporal punishment in all setting as this is a major cause of children’s drop-out from school and contribute to pushing children to run away from their homes.

Another child Sameer Haider demanded the minister approval of child protection policy followed by a plan of action to address all forms of violence, abuse and exploitation. Abu Turab demanded legislative measures to prohibit child domestic labour since this is worst form of child labour. A 15-year-old student Bushra urged the government to increase education budget with focus on girls’ secondary education, which could be a strategy to address the issue of child marriages as well.

Abeeha Batool, a 10-year-old girl, mentioned the importance of devising mechanism to hear children views in matters related to children to exercise the right to participation for every child. Shahzaib, a 16-year-old student, highlighted the need to realise and address the psychological and emotional health issues of children and suggested to appoint psychologist at every school.