KARACHI, Dec 31: Expressing their serious concern over the widespread child abuse, speakers at the concluding session of a two-day workshop on Dimensions of Child Abuse here on Tuesday stressed the need for an enhanced awareness on the issue.

The workshop was organized jointly by the UNICEF and the National Association of Business, Professional and Agricultural Women.

They said that a better awareness among masses would help prevent further abuse and exploitation of children in the society.

They demanded enactment of specific laws that could ensure child’s rights and check any violation.

Being a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), they pointed out, Pakistan was bound not only to ensure implementation of all the existing laws on child’s rights, but also to enact more laws, rules and regulations in conformity with the recommendations of the CRC.

They indicated that the children lodged in different jails were facing the worst sort of victimization. Highlighting their plight, they indicated that these children had to undergo a rough treatment first at police stations and worst in jails then. Most often, they added, they were made to wait for months and years in prison before their case came up for hearing and disposed of by the concerned courts.

The speakers also pointed out that in many cases, children were handcuffed when brought to courts by police for hearings. Handcuffing of children, especially those facing a trial in minor cases, is absolutely unlawful, they said.

They suggested that the children having committed minor offences like theft, pick-pocketing, shop-lifting, etc. should not be lodged in jails. Instead, they added, the accused of such offences be let off with a warning and their parents be made responsible if they committed such an offence again.

Most of the speakers were of the view that the rights of children must be protected even if they had committed offences of serious nature and were languishing in jails.

Some of the speakers pointed out that a child, who had either committed a crime, underwent jail term or simply faced a trial, failed to find a respectable position in society. In most cases, they added, parents appeared reluctant in accepting a reunion with them owing to certain social pressures. To ensure such children’s proper rehabilitation, the speakers suggested, the government should set up rehabilitation centres to keep them till their psychological recovery.

They said that the National Association of Business, Professional and Agricultural Women (NABPAW) was in the process of preparing a training module to combat prevent child abuse and exploitation with special focus on children in jails. The module, they added, would later be followed by NGOs and concerned governments departments.

The IG (Prisons), Sindh, Brig Nisar Mahar, speaking on the occasion, said that the jails unfortunately had never been a priority of the successive governments.

Denying any serious child abuse in the Juvenile Jail in Karachi, he, however, revealed that an overwhelming majority of the jail staff was illiterate and lacked the perception of child’s rights.

He stated that more vehicles were being procured for the production of prisoners in courts on their hearings promptly.

In Hyderabad jail, he pointed out, an operation clean up was carried out and it transpired that juveniles had been kept with convicts and hardened criminals. Now the situation there had improved, he claimed.

At present there are two women jails, one in Karachi and the other in Larkana, the IG said adding that two more were being established in Hyderabad and Sukkur. Similarly, he said, two juvenile jails existed in Karachi and Larkana and another two, one each in Hyderabad and Sukkur were to be set up soon. He revealed that many of the juveniles were facing charges relating to narcotics and arms.

The IG observed that jails could not be left to the jail staff alone. The community at large, he added, had to come up and share responsibility of bringing about an improvement in the jail conditions.

He attributed the low level of tolerance among prisoners to the overcrowding in jails and emphasized the need for the establishment of more jails before the possible eruption of riots in overcrowded prisons.

Brig Mahar was of the view that only a handful of NGOs were working honestly for their established causes while the rest had been holding functions and seeking media publicity to appease their donors.

Shamim Kazmi, Zohra Zuberi, Hina Shahid and many others delivered speeches on the occasion. An MPA from Sindh, Bilquees Mukhtar, Asma Sherwani, Syed Irfan Ali Shah, Shama Mithani, Dr Sadaf Shaikh besides a large number of councillors, doctors, lawyers, social workers, prisons officials attended the workshop and expressed their views on child abuse.