The rights’ front: State fails people, yet again

HRCP annual report urges the government to resolve human rights crises.

ISLAMABAD:

The state has failed to devise a broad and all-inclusive strategy to tackle the country’s worsening situation of human rights, which did not show any significant improvement in 2013, according to representatives of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

The HRCP launched its “State of Human Rights in 2013” report at a local hotel on Thursday.

The report, which is published annually, noted some positives developments in Pakistan during 2013, such as the general elections. But it also highlighted challenges biting at the safety and personal freedoms of Pakistani citizens.

Brutal attacks on non-Muslims to the sectarian violence that claimed 687 lives in 2013 and the 869 women who were killed in the name of honour across Pakistan, point towards the discomforting reality that the state has not done enough to confront and resolve human rights crises.

“We do not find any indication of a comprehensive approach to the problem,” HRCP Secretary-General IA Rehman said.

Rehman said successive governments have worked on a case-to-case basis to deal with the rights violations, eschewing an overall policy.



Whither commission?

“The National Human Rights Commission Act was passed in 2012. The commission has still not been formed,” Rehman told The Express Tribune. “If it had been a priority, the commission would have been formed by now.”

“A good government is one that acts before a crisis and a bad government is one that only wakes up when it gets smacked on the head,” Rehman said.

The report is divided into six sections — rule of law, enforcement of law, fundamental freedoms, democratic development, rights of the disadvantaged and social and economic rights — and also provides recommendations for the issues discussed in each sub-section.

Role regressed

Where the report mentioned the participation of women candidates and voters increased in 2013, it also noted that “women’s share in country’s legislatures fell to 19.5 per cent in 2013 from 19.9 per cent in 2008.”

“Women’s role in politics has regressed… it is a moment of worry for all of us,” said HRCP member Nasreen Azhar.

Those with low numbers

HRCP Co-chairperson Kamran Arif said the rights of religious minorities also suffered during 2013.

The report mentioned the attack on a Christian church in Peshawar, the Joseph Colony massacre, the violence against Shia Hazaras in Balochistan as well as seven Ahmadis who were targeted and killed during the year.

Law and chaos

It also stated that 3,218 people were killed in violence in Karachi, 199 were killed in 31 drone strikes and more than 90 cases of enforced disappearance were reported around the year.

Violence even crept into the health sector, as 20 polio vaccinators and nine policemen protecting polio vaccination teams were murdered in 2013.

The report’s editor, Najamuddin, said the statistics for the report were compiled from media monitoring of 18 English and Urdu Pakistani newspapers and field reports from HRCP district monitors.

“The depressing thing was that one could not see any discernible effort to undo these trends or a holistic approach to challenge these things,” he said.

Rehman, who also said civil society organisations have apprehensions that the state’s only concession in the peace talks with militants will be at the cost of women and minorities, said the state must provide relief to the masses.

“We think that it is time that the state re-orientates itself to the cause of the people’s welfare,” Rehman said. “Not only [should it] allocate resources but also display the necessary will to meet the basic demands of a civilized existence.”



Child rights situation

•  3 out of every 10 primary age children were not attending school

•  1,204 children were subjected to physical violence in the first six months of 2013 – 68 per cent were girls

•  1,400 juveniles in jail

•  11-12 million child labourers, half of them below age 10

•  35 per cent of child deaths due to malnutrition

Workers rights

•  Number of unemployed increased to 3.72 million in 2012-13 from 3.4 million in 2010-11

•  Estimated 2 million Pakistanis were trapped in various forms of modern-day slavery

•  Only 1.59 million Pakistani workers have access to social security, out of total labour force of 59 million

Status of education

•  Pakistan ranked 180th out of 221 countries in terms of literacy rate

•  5.5 million out of school children, second highest number in the world

•  2,088 ghost schools, 1,008 schools illegally occupied, 5,827 nonfunctional schools

Health situation

•  One doctor for every 1,127 people

•  One dentist per 14,406 people

•  One hospital bed per 1,786 people

•  85 confirmed polio cases; 80 of them from FATA

•  20 polio vaccinators were killed; nine policeman protecting them were killed

•  300 killed in measles epidemic - 192 in Punjab

Law and order and legal rights

•  20,000 cases were pending at Supreme Court

•  68 citizens booked under penal law offences relating to religion

•  Over 14,000 murders were reported to police

•  694 people died in 45 suicide bombings

•  503 suspects killed in 357 police encounters

•  199 people killed in 31 drone strikes

•  3,218 people killed in Karachi, up 14 per cent from 2012

•  64,000 firearms, 72 million kg of explosives seized in K-P

•  90 cases of enforced disappearances reported

•  129 mutilated bodies of suspected disappearance victims found

•  At least 227 people sentenced to death - executions remain suspended

Sectarian related violence and minorities issues

•  200 Shia Hazaras killed in Balochistan in the first few weeks of 2013

•  667 people killed in more than 200 sectarian attacks

•  Seven Ahmadis killed in targeted attacks

•  Individuals charged with offences relating to religion included 17 Ahmadis, 13 Christians and nine Muslims

•  100 houses burnt down in Lahore’s Joseph colony; suicide blasts outside church in Peshawar

•  11 journalists were killed

Women’s rights

•  869 women killed in the name of honour

•  More than 800 women committed suicide

•  At least 56 women were killed solely for giving birth to a girl child

•  2,576 rape cases reported from Punjab

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2014.