PESHAWAR, Nov 20: Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) on Wednesday expressed concern over the delay in initiating work over the borstal institutions in Peshawar and Bannu, and apprehended that the funds allocated for these projects might lapse at the end of the current financial year.

The deputy national coordinator of Sparc, Arshad Mahmood, said that under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000, a juvenile offender could only be kept in a borstal institution. However, these projects had been delayed by the government.

The society organized media consultation on the occasion of International Day Against Child Abuse and Universal Children’s Day at Peshawar Press Club. “Year 2003: Child Rights in Frontier province” was the topic under discussion.

Mr Mahmood pointed out that Frontier remains one of the two provinces, the other being Balochistan, that have no laws specifically relating to the issue of child rights. Regarding poor education system and a high number of out of school children he informed that in Frontier the primary school enrolment ratio is only 56 per cent for boys and 38 per cent for girls which is very low according to the international standards keeping in view the huge target of overcoming gender disparity by year 2005.

He said the NWFP Compulsory Primary Education Act, 1996, should be implemented and main characters of the City High School scandal should be given exemplary punishment.

Regarding the issue of child labour, Mr Mahmood said that according to the official statistics 1.06 million children are involved in child labour in the country.