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Friday, 03 Sep 2010
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The worsening state of Pakistan’s children
Children who scavenge recyclable items from a bin wait for a garbage truck to unload in Lahore on Friday, May 7, 2010. PHOTO: AGENCIES
ISLAMABAD: ‘The State of Pakistan’s Children 2009’, a first-of-its-kind report was launched at a ceremony organised by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) on Thursday.
Addressing the ceremony, Director Save the Children Sweden Syed Mehmood Asghar, said that every year Pakistan gets funds from international agencies to stop child trafficking. However, no work has been done in this area and the issue remains unaddressed.
Asghar said that children trafficked to Arab countries are employed as camel jockeys and labour on camel farms.
He also expressed concern over pornography which children access at net cafés.
“Civil societies working on children’s rights are planning to take up this issue with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and ask them to take some measures to put an end to such activities”, he said. “Nobody takes up the issue of children working in coal mines in Balochistan, which authorities deny. I have seen children working in the mines who also claim to have been sexually abused,” he added.
Member National Assembly (MNA) Bushra Gohar said that for many years she has heard that the government is doing a lot to safeguard the rights of children, however, no work has been done in this area either on the federal or provincial level.
“We have not moved forward regarding the rights of children, we have to show our commitment and make clear recommendations for the path forward,” she said.
She suggested that the minimum age of criminal responsibility should be raised from 7 to 14 adding that the 18th amendment makes education compulsory and that the Government should ensure that children get a quality education regardless of their social strata.
Senior programme officer International Labour Organisation (ILO) Saifullah M Chaudhry announced that ILO in collaboration with the labour ministry and the statistics bureau will begin a child labour survey in 2010 in order to plan policies and strategies required to eliminate child labour in Pakistan.
The report says that in Pakistan every year 400,000 children under the age of five die, of which 300,000 are in the first year of their life, due to various diseases.
Increasing poverty is forcing children to work. A large number of children are denied access to education, health, safety and security, and are victims of terrorism, internal conflict and displacement.
In 2003, Unicef said that there were about eight million child labourers in Pakistan.
In 2005, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan report estimated the number of child labourers had increased to 10 million.
According to the Pakistan Labour Force Survey of 2007-2008, 2.68 million children between the ages of 10 to 14 were working.
In Swat, due to the conflict with militants, up to 600,000 children are reported to have missed up to a year of school. The total estimated cost of the damage caused to the education sector in the five districts of Buner, Upper and Lower Dir, Shangla, and Swat as well as the two tribal agencies of Bajaur and Mohmand in Fata is estimated to be Rs 3.04 billion.
Director Sparc Arshad Mahmood said that the Children Protection Bill should be approved as soon as possible.
“We have to ask the State as to what has been done in the past 20 years to ensure all children enjoy their basic rights. We need to know why it is taking so long to legislate for children; why budgetary allocations for child centered programmes remain at bare minimum levels; why there is still no statutory body to protect and promote child rights in Pakistan,” he said.
“How can we expect Pakistan to prosper without investing in children?” he asked.
Published in the Express Tribune, June 4th, 2010.
Reader Comments (8)
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This is horrible- sadly i am the first one to be commenting on this issue. Oh i see, this is ‘not’ a masala news. Cough Cough…
Come on Pakistan, these are your children. My generation is going through a lot of pain. Can’t believe these issues are not addressed.Forget the government it’s not going to do anything. If i try to help these kids, what i get from my parents and relatives is that ‘kiya tumnay saray mashray ka theka utha rakha hai? Bari ayeen.’…well you know what?- I think yes, i have taken the responsibility of improvng my society, i hope you do the same one day.
Terrorism can not be fought as long as the children of this country are not secured. It is important for us to cure these children because these are the ones who are pitched by the Taliban in becoming suicide bombers. Poverty, unemployment are some major issues which will not let us fight terrorism. Give these children a reason to live and they will not want to die.
The Article written by Sehrish Wasif definitely provokes the thought of our policy makers and in the light of this, they may further envisage a good policy for the benefits of these destitute children who are already in state of desperation due to inadequate educational facility, poverty and forced child labour.A large number of children almost faces a bleak future in our country due to ill-planning and non-provision of education, while the child labour is among the top.Through your esteem paper I would request to the higher authorities to please look into the matter personally and make adequate provision in the annual education budget grants and create the ways & means for eradication of illiteracy and child labour from our country.
Finally an awareness–globally children are suffering—-do something constructive take an example from Raina of Jordan—?
In Pakistan poverty is rampant and is on the rise with people falling in poverty after loosing their jobs due to worsening business environment. Here parents give birth to children so they can get free labour to help them in the farms, or add another hand for begging in family. Iam not an economic expert to suggest steps to government. Iam a father of 5 children on my own and it really hurts me and disturbs me terribly to see such misery as I consider the children of Pakistan as my own. I see no hope for the common man in Pakistan unless we dont get rid of the ruling elite classes through ballot
Its tooooo sad to see our future generation is in a terrible condition —just because of the ill-planning of our so called ‘Government’. Great work Ms. Wasif for highlighting the issue..Time to do something.
Yes, Sherish, I have read it now.
I have been an avid reader of your articles, Sehrish Wasif, and I must say you have raised some serious and thought-provoking genres of thought which need to be further pursued in our daily journalistic discourse. The ill-being and the ill-disposed nature of the toddlers that one often frequents on the streets is awe-inspiring as well a sham on the promises of all our leaders with their mantra of “Roti, Kapra aur Makaan”.