Keeping them safe: Govt urged to enact pending laws on child rights

Seminar’s participants say current situation for minors remains alarming in the province.

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has been urged to enact and implement pending laws on children’s rights.

Participants said this at an advocacy seminar on child rights organised by Child Rights Movement (CRM) K-P and Save the Children Pakistan on Saturday. Representatives of government departments and civil society organisations took part in the seminar, shared a press release issued by CRM K-P.

They urged the government to hasten work on bills that will ensure children’s right to free education, child protection, promotion of breastfeeding, child marriage restriction, and the prohibition of corporal punishment and abolition of child labour.

K-P is one of the provinces that has child protection laws such as the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act 2010 and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Borstal Institutions Act 2012, under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), added the handout.

Despite the existence of these regulations, the situation of children’s rights in the province is alarming, with violations reported on a regular basis, said participants.

Irfan Yousafzai, regional director Ministry of Human Rights and Fakhar Alam and Sikandar Alam Khan from CRM K-P urged members of civil society to play a more robust role, focusing on policy advocacy and general child development.

Zainab from Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) K-P briefed the participants of the seminar on how displaced people from Waziristan are being assimilated. She also highlighted constraints faced by civil society organisations in assisting the IDPs.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 7^th, 2014.