Protecting child rights

Prime minister Shaukat Aziz might have plans to transform Pakistan into a "child-friendly" state, but as he himself admitted at a function held in Islamabad on Tuesday to observe National Children's Day, there is a long way to go before the country can attain this goal.

Indeed, given the grim statistics relating to Pakistan's 72 million-strong, under-18-population, there is every reason to believe that it will be several decades before words are translated into reality.

The damage so far done to any concept of child rights in the country is of a serious nature, and it will take sustained, joint efforts by the government and society to reverse the situation and usher in an environment conducive to children and their needs.

Considerations of space would not allow recounting all the areas of child rights that have been grossly neglected. However, even a few statistics are sufficient to illustrate just how badly the younger generation has been let down.

Perhaps the most telling relate to the state of education in the country where the drop-out rate in primary schools increased from 40 per cent in 1996-1997 to 54 per cent in 1999-2000, making Pakistan's school drop-out rate the highest in the world.

Another area of concern is child labour. Independent observers, brushing aside the government's official statistics of 3.6 million, cite the figure for child workers as close to 10 million, with many young labourers starting work as early as at four or five years of age.

There has been some progress in this area, with international agencies initiating child labour-elimination schemes and putting pressure on the government to tackle this problem, but growing poverty in the country has meant only limited success.

Children still continue to be employed in many hazardous occupations where, because of their tender age, their earnings are only a small pittance compared to what an adult worker earns in similar jobs. Health, too, continues to be an area of concern.

Owing to inadequate medical infrastructure in the rural areas, where the majority of the population resides, and poor health facilities elsewhere in the country, 545,000 children under five continue to die of diseases that are preventable as well as curable.

Obviously, Pakistan would have to enact comprehensive legislation for the protection of its children, and bring its laws up to date with the provisos of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child to which it is a signatory.

In any case, it cannot afford to regress as it did late last year when the Lahore High Court struck down the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (the Supreme Court suspended the judgment on Saturday pending further orders).

But more than that, our politicians and bureaucrats, while taking measures to alleviate poverty that is closely linked to child exploitation, need to activate public consciousness about the state of our children.

For, this is another area where we have gone wrong. As a society, we attach little importance to the mental and physical well-being of the children, often subjecting them to harsh and degrading punishment in schools, and turning a blind eye to other ills such as child prostitution and trafficking. If we ourselves are not sensitized to the needs and vulnerabilities of our children, then even a whole lot of rules would not be enough to protect them.

Disaster relief priorities

Continued rain in the plains and snowfall in many mountainous areas of the country have brought life to a standstill for hundreds of thousands of people. The weather system that caused much death and destruction last week in Balochistan, the Northern Areas, NWFP, northern Punjab and Azad Kashmir has returned to add to the affected people's misery.

The continuing rain and snow spell has hampered relief operations, in Balochistan and the NWFP in particular. Inclement weather on Tuesday kept relief goods from reaching the Makran and Pishin districts in Balochistan, and Hazara, Swat and Kohistan in the Frontier.

The Balochistan cabinet has demanded that the federal government declare the affected regions in the province as calamity-hit areas, and the NWFP is also said to be considering a similar move.

Such a declaration will help expedite emergency relief operations and give a tax holiday for the year in the affected areas. The exact number of casualties caused by the current weather system is not clear but these are believed to be quite high and rising. For instance, the Frontier government reported another 128 deaths on Tuesday alone, bringing the confirmed death toll so far to 320 in that province.

Besides deaths and injuries, thousands of people are reportedly trapped in many snowbound or otherwise inaccessible areas with inadequate food and essential supplies.

Roads, including the Karakoram Highway and those in the galliyat and Murree region, have remained blocked because of avalanches and landslides. The situation in the plains is also not normal, where the long rain spell has caused flooding, prolonged power outages and low gas pressure, restricting movement and affecting fuel supply for cooking and heating purposes.

The Punjab government has warned of increased pressure on small dams and water reservoirs, fearing further flooding. The situation at hand underscores the need to expedite emergency relief operations already underway by several public and private-sector organizations.

In doing so, the need is to ensure that a priority list is drawn up for the services most needed - food, water, blankets, fuel, medicines, etc. - and the areas where these are most urgently required.

College violence

Two major student parties are again involved in violence in some Karachi colleges. On Tuesday, clashes between the supporters of the All-Pakistan Mohajir Students' Organization and the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba led to the closure of two colleges besides the arrest of 26 students.

The police had to use tear-gas and resort to a baton charge to stop violence. As always, the two parties have accused each other of causing the provocation that led to violence, though mercifully no one was killed as has often happened in the past.

Then one party went on to lodge an FIR with the police, followed by a similar FIR by the other. The state then lodged a third FIR - against the two groups. Some teachers also alleged that members of a student group misbehaved with them and locked them up in the staff room.

One is appalled to know that political parties to which these students owe allegiance should do nothing to restrain their acolytes. For the last more than a decade and a half, student activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Jamaat-i-Islami have been involved in violence that has often led to deaths.

Yet the top leaderships of these parties have made no attempt to rein in their student supporters. Schools and colleges are sacred places where students go to acquire knowledge and prepare themselves for their future role as the nation's builders.

That they should turn colleges into battlegrounds, misbehave with teachers and do such a demeaning thing as to go to the police to report against fellow students is a sad commentary on the political parties to which these students owe loyalty.

As their leaders and mentors, the MQM and the JI leaders should do some soul-searching and ask themselves whether they are serving the cause of education and their student followers by letting them behave as they do on the campuses. Let all political parties pledge to maintain peace on the campuses and safeguard the sanctity of educational institutions.