Youth problems to be resolved on priority: minister

Govt urged to introduce reforms and measures which curb child labour

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ali Muhammad has said that problems of the youth will be resolved in and outside the parliament.

He also pledged that human rights will be protected.

Addressing a conference on “The Role of Parliament in Protection of Human Rights and Justice,” organised by the Network for Human Rights and Justice (NHRJ) on Thursday.

The minister said that the younger generations have to play a leading role for a better tomorrow for the country.



“The progress and prosperity of the country are directly linked to the leading role of our younger generation and they should be more proactive to assume responsibility in a more responsible way,” he added.

In her opening remarks, NHRJ Executive Director Lubna Azad underlined that human rights should be safeguarded all the time.

She said that a people’s complaint cell with regard to human rights failed to yield any tangible results, stressing that more needs to be done to protect human rights.

“The government should adopt measures to empower the lower and middle class of society to ensure that their rights are protected,” she remarked.

She went on to say that the government should expedite efforts to get all children enrolled in schools even in remote parts of the country.

Moreover she added that there is a dire need to safeguard the rights of women, children and specially widows and the handicapped.

The government should introduce reforms and measures so that children and minors need not work before their maturity age, she added.

She said that NHRJ has been striving to run charity medical camps for general and deserving people, ensuring vocational courses for young girls and house wives and delivers food packages to people of poor areas.

The NHRJ would launch an effective programme under which brilliant and deserving students would be sponsored from low or middle class backgrounds to fully fund their higher education.

The NHRJ runs programmes to dig water wells in rural areas and other places where there is acute shortage of clean drinking water.

The distribution of warm clothes, blankets and food packages for the needy and deserving will be launched soon, she added.

The parliamentary affairs minister said that the door of his ministry would be opened irrespective of one’s caste, creed and family background to resolve legitimate problems.



“The younger generation should focus on their studies as pen and book are powerful tools in facing challenges head-on,” he noted.

The conference was attended, among others, by National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) Pakistan Chairman Justice (Retd) Ali Nawaz Chohan, former federal secretary Sumaira Saddiqui, Azad Kashmir former deputy speaker Shaheen Kausar Dar, Kashmir Youth Forum Chairman Maria Iqbal Tarana, NHRJ Executive Director Lubna Azad, Youth Parliament President Ubaid Qureshi, Dr Murtaza Mughal, advocate Nisar Shah, NHRJ Director Muhammad Zulqarnain Sulehria, Human Rights Organisation Punjab Chairman Sajjid Akbar Abbasi and others.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2018.