LAHORE:
“Without commitment and vision, the benefits of provincial autonomy will not trickle down vulnerable segments of society particularly children,” Iqbal Detho, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) national manager, said on Tuesday.
Detho was addressing a seminar organised by SPARC on Post Provincial Responsibilities of the 18th Amendment and Child Protection on Tuesday.
He urged the provincial government to create structures and institutions in addition to laws and procedures for the realisation of rights of children.
The speakers highlighted the laws made by the federal government in compliance of its ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
They discussed a number of legislative initiatives that were under process at the time the 18th Constitutional Amendment was passed. They said the bills facing a ‘dead-end’ included the National Commission on the Rights of Children Bill, 2009; the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 2009; the Charter of Child Rights Bill, 2009; the Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Bill, 2010; and the Child Marriages Restraint (Amendment) Bill, 2009; all pending before the National Assembly.
They demanded that a legal framework for the protection of child rights be discussed immediately, with focus on the perspective of constitutional provisions and fulfilment of international obligations.
IA Rehman, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan director, said that it was mentioned in the draft of the 18th Amendment that any confusion will be resolved within the first year. He regretted that a year had passed but confusions still remained.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 11th, 2011.
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