Over 3,000 children were abused in 2017

Experts urge the need for an updated national child labour survey

ISLAMABAD: Months after a local judge and his wife were sentenced for torturing their child maid, a new study has detailed that over 3,000 children faced sexual abused in the country in 2017. This was disclosed in the Annual State of Pakistan’s Children Report 2017 conducted by the Society for Protection of Rights of the Child (SPARC) at the National Press Club on Monday.

The report noted with concern the prevalence of violence against children in the country with abuses in different categories including child marriages, honour killings and sexual abuse.

In 2017, the report noted, there were 3,445 cases of child sexual abuse. This, however, was down from 4,139 in 2016.

Quoting a study by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Sahil, over the past seven-and-a-half years from 2010 to mid-2017, at least 22,528 cases of child sexual abuse were reported.

The report also paints a dismal state of children in all sectors including health, education, rights and justice.

According to Pakistan Education Statistics, 22.6 million children in Pakistan are out of schools. However, budgetary allocations for education account for just 2.5 per cent of the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the country.

Moreover, it calculated that by the end of December 2017, there were 1,198 juveniles in borstals all over the country.

During the event, it was recommended that a national child labour survey should be conducted official statistics in that regard have not been updated since 1996.

“Effective implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is in the hands of everybody including, NGOs, government officials, the United Nations, International Organisations and communities. I would like to avail the opportunity to encourage everyone to play their roles in the promotion, protection, implementation and evaluation of child rights in the country,” said SPARC Executive Director Dr Fakhar Sohail.

Lead representative Sajjad Cheema emphasised legislative development and effective implementation and monitoring of child protection laws.

“It is quite sad that Pakistan has been ranked at 125 out of 130 by the Human Capital Development Report of 2017,” Research representative Minal Kiani said while explaining the findings of the report.

“There is an immediate need to invest more in human capital development for higher productivity of individuals in the future,” she added.

Heartfile President Dr Sania Nishtar appreciated SPARC’s research about infant mortality rate, which stated that 86 children per 1,000 live births in 2017 die in Pakistan while the number of unsafe abortions each year is around 890,000.

The study added that around 359 children have been sexually abused by clerics and other religious officials in the past decade, however, this data was only based cases reported in the newspapers which means that it provides only a fraction of the actual cases.

The report states that despite the crucial need to provide adequate healthcare facilities, the budgetary allocation for healthcare expenditure as a percentage of GDP over the years has remained less than a single percentage point.

Child rights Protection Technical Expert Naheed Aziz and human rights defender Tahira Abdullah stressed on Pakistan’s compliance with UNCRC ratified back in 1990 and called for serious measures.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 10^th, 2018.