Seminar highlights increasing child abuse

SUKKUR:

Pakistan has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which underlines the fundamental principles of treating children in schools and homes.

While addressing a seminar at the Circuit House Ghotki on Wednesday, Society for the Protection of Rights of Children’s regional manager Kashif Bajeer said that incidents of physical punishment on children were increasing at an alarming rate.

Around a quarter of the 19.75 million children of school-going age in Pakistan do not go to school, Bajeer stated. According to the Madadgaar National Helpline, more than 5,000 cases of violence against children were reported between January and October last year. More than 1,500 of those cases were registered in Sindh, Bajeer revealed.

Other speakers present at the seminar also highlighted the severity of crimes against children, stating that immediate measures must be taken to eliminate them. In the past, children subjected to physical punishment used to run away or drop out of school. However, increased severity in punishment has meant that there is a growing number of suicide cases in children that are physically abused in schools. The speakers also stated that a worrying 63 per cent of girls of school-going age do not go to school.

The seminar called for better trained teachers and stated that while all four provinces have taken administrative steps to ban physical punishment in schools, these steps have not been implemented.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 29^th, 2013.