Protecting our children — II

The government has not demonstrated any commitment towards incorporating the Convention on the Rights of the Child.


Arshad Mahmood November 23, 2010
Protecting our children — II

In its recommendations, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has said that the state party should give priority attention to increasing budget allocations for children, ensuring a judicious distribution of resources between different fields and paying particular attention to enhancing budgetary allocations for social activities. It was further recommended that, “the State party ensure that primary education is free and compulsory for all children”. The recommendation is related both to legislation and resource allocation. Progress in Pakistan has been dismal as the percentage of GDP spending on education continued to decline for the past many years. There was a welcome step by parliament this year where education has been made a fundamental right for all children between five and 16 years of age through the Eighteenth Amendment. However, legislation without resource allocation for implementation is an ‘empty gesture’. Budgeting of laws is something completely unknown to policymakers in Pakistan, resulting in enactment of laws without any implementation mechanisms.

Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson has rightly pointed out that “while some states have made progress, others have made no more than symbolic gestures without creating an effective infrastructure of implementation and monitoring reaching down to the local level”. In Pakistan, the National Commission for Child Welfare and Development (NCCWD) is responsible for coordinating the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. NCCWD, established through an executive order, therefore, has no legal standing, has very limited human and financial resources on its disposal and is mostly dependent on donor funding. Being a non-statutory body, its recommendations are also not considered seriously by various ministries and provincial government departments, resulting in poor implementation of the Convention.

Sensitisation of professional groups about the Convention is one of the most important aspects regarding the implementation of the Convention which is missing in Pakistan. The Committee recommended that the state party (a) continue and strengthen its training and sensitisation on children’s rights for professional groups working with and for children and (b) develop adequately resourced policies and programmes for a systematic and sustained training process. NGOs have projects targeted at training different professional groups, mostly police and prison officials, in small numbers. However, no commitment has been demonstrated by the government in the past almost two decades to incorporate the Convention into the training curricula of professional groups. Training academies for the judiciary, teachers, police and health professionals should incorporate the Convention into their training curricula and materials.

Summarising what can be drawn from the above discussion, the government of Pakistan was not able to bring the national legislation into conformity with the Convention. Therefore, priority should be given to legislation at the federal level, i.e. enactment of pending bills; increased budgetary allocations particularly for education, health and child protection and statutory status for the NCCWD with more financial and human resources.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24th, 2010.

COMMENTS (5)

Jawad Ullah | 13 years ago | Reply Rightly pointed out AM, however i will still advoacte that SPARC should replicate the data collection system model and Child Protection Centre for Juveniles, that i established in two Provinces. The model is not expensive as well as in Government system, rather the formats were developed on the basis of International Juvenile Justice Indicators and approved by National Police Bureau.
Shafqat Ali Khan | 13 years ago | Reply JJSO 2000 was a dream of child rights activists in Pakistan. I do remember those days when under the auspices of Anees Jillani, we were advocating for the implementation of this system. Finally, President Musharaf issued the ordinance and spread a ray of hope among several HR activists. But if we see the fruits of the JJSO, even after passing ten years fruit has not been ripe. So it needs our proper heed and we should switch our focus from just legislation to realization of it. The author efforts for CR are widely recommended and needs to be encouraged very much.
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