High court issues notices to orphanages yet to be registered

The Sindh High Court (SHC) has issued notices to 21 Darul Atfals and orphanages running under various charity organisations, which have not been registered yet under the Orphanage Act.

The direction came on Saturday on a petition with regard to non-implementation of the orphanage law in the Darul Atfals and supervision of orphanages in the province. The social welfare department secretary submitted that as many as 10 Darul Atfals situated in Karachi, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Khairpur and Jamshoro had applied for registration under the Orphanage Act in compliance with the directions of the court.

However, he submitted that 21 Darul Atfals being run by private charity organisations had not responded to the notices issued to them by the social welfare department. The court issued notices to the 21 Darul Atfals and directed the social welfare department secretary to issue show-cause notices to them with regard to their non-registration as well as take action against them in accordance with the law.

A division bench of the SHC headed by Justice Salahuddin Panhwar observed that directions had been issued to the chief secretary to ensure that all departments dealing with women issues, particularly the commission on status of women, social welfare department and women development department, shall work under one umbrella but the directions were not complied with yet.

The SHC observed that it had come on record that the social welfare department was created by the Sindh government to deal with different social issues pertaining to women, children and Atfals whereas the women development department was working under the federation. The court observed that after the 18th Amendment, the subject had fell into the jurisdictions of the provinces due to which the women development department was now working under the Sindh province.

The court observed that three main Darul Atfals were under the control of the social welfare department; whereas, the women development department was working separately. The SHC observed that since the women development department was specified for the women therefore the chief secretary shall call all the stakeholders pertaining to the issues of women and ensure that effective mechanism shall be submitted with regard to women issues dealt by preferably one department with complete independence.

The SHC directed the relevant government officials to submit a compliance report with regard to previous orders issued by the court as well as reasonable proposals within

one month.

It is pertinent to mention here that the SHC had directed the chief secretary to formulate an easy mechanism for the registration of orphans so that they could get computerised national identity cards (CNICs) without going through any such process that would hurt their dignity.

The SHC observed that orphans undeniably fell within the meaning of the citizen; therefore, they were entitled to have an identity which was legally manifested in having the CNICs, therefore, it was the absolute responsibility of the quarter concerned to formulate a mechanism that ensured that the orphans were able to get their CNICs without having their dignity hurt.

The court directed the chief secretary to look into the matter personally and proceed further for forming a mechanism in this regard.

On a previous hearing, the SHC had directed the Sindh government to ensure that orphanages being managed by the government or semi-government organisations or NGOs shall be supervised under one umbrella according to the Sindh Orphanages (Supervision and Control) Act 1976 with further direction that the chief secretary and the social welfare secretary shall call reports from all over the province regarding the orphanages.

The SHC observed that the orphanages should not provide sub-standard education to the children in the name of vocational training. The court directed the orphanages to improve their standards of formal and vocational education for the children and make efforts to modernise their education system at the primary and secondary levels leading towards college and university education in a manner that it must eventually result in the benefit of children when they are groomed and reach the age of self-dependence.

The SHC directed that the orphanages must send the eligible children to the government and private education systems and the management of the private institutions may be directed to waive educational expenses for the orphans as part of their corporate social responsibility.

The high court directed that the orphanages needed to maintain data of all their children with all the details and reasons for them leaving to their new destinations. The court observed that maintaining data of orphan girls was more important in order to prevent any wrongdoings with their lives. The court directed that the orphanages shall get an audit of their accounts of the last 10 years conducted from a reputed firm. The SHC directed the social welfare secretary to convene the board meetings of orphanages quarterly and submit a report with the minutes of the meetings.