Unfinished agenda

Principal aim of this day is to raise wider awareness about wellbeing of children

Pakistan is one of many countries in the world where the International Children’s Rights Day is celebrated. The principal aim of this day is to raise wider awareness about the wellbeing of children, see to their welfare and health, as well as to encourage comradeship and understanding between children. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child formulated over the course of a decade the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, an international binding document with legal validity which anchors the rights of children, signed by most countries. The United States and South Sudan are the only exceptions.

Pakistan ratified the convention — which expresses the agreements of the countries which signed it with regards to the rights and status of children — as early as November 1990. The treaty offers a refreshing outlook on children – as autonomous entities with fundamental rights – and determines that, “member states will take suitable, legislative, administrative or other actions in order to implement the rights realised in this convention”. It is useful to examine whether Pakistan and other countries are indeed living up to that pledge or not.

Out of several recommendations made under the Universal Periodic Review, the government of Pakistan was required to take concrete measures to implement laws and policies in an effort to eliminate forced child marriages. Even as the Sindh Child Marriages Restraint Act 2013 was welcomed by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in its concluding observations last year, it raised concerns about the difference between the minimum legal age for boys (18 years) and girls (16 years) in other provinces. Lawmakers have their work cut out for them as they walk a tightrope on the issue. One hopes the Child Marriages Restraint (Amendment) Bill 2017 will be viewed more sympathetically in favour of children by the bicameral legislature this time round.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2017.

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