PESHAWAR, Dec 28: Speakers at a conference on Thursday urged the government to implement laws dealing with the rights of children and take steps for their protection.
The conference, organised by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc), discussed child labour, corporal punishment, traditional practices like early child marriages, use of children in crimes like smuggling and beggary and issues of juvenile prisoners.
Civil society members from Peshawar, Swat and Mardan participated in the conference.
Minister for Social Welfare and Women Development Kashif Azam said it was true that laws were only framed and not implemented in most cases due to which problems remained unsolved.
He said the NWFP government had recently formed a human rights monitoring committee at district and tehsil levels to assess the child protection issues which would soon submit its report so that practical steps could be taken.
When Sparc regional manager Jehanzeb Khan pointed out that there was not a single woman probation officer to take care of girl juveniles, the minister promised that he would try to solve the issue within three months.
He also promised to raise the issue of lack of availability of a single borstal institute, a reformatory school for juvenile prisoners in the province at the next cabinet meeting.
Talking about standards of child protection, Sparc executive director Qandeel Shujaat stressed the need for positive attitude for changing the existing situation.
He said that provincial and federal governments should coordinate to solve child protection issues. “We take care of our children, but do not care about street children and child labourers,” said Mr Shujaat.
He said that a mechanism was needed to protect vulnerable groups like poor and deprived children.
According to a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan report, said Mr Shujaat, there were about ten million child labourers and called upon the government to change its policies and take steps to implement child-related laws.
It seems unlikely that the government will achieve its millennium development goals by 2015, if it does not take practical steps, Mr Shujaat said.
Sherin Naz of the Save the Children said children were exposed to violence and there were worst kinds of corporal punishments children are subjected to in the province.
During a survey in girl's schools of Peshawar, D.I. Khan and Hangu district, she found that 43 types of corporal punishments were given to school children and most of them were humiliating and a violation of the child rights.
Girl students were tortured psychologically and boys were more given corporal punishments for minor mistakes at schools and even at home which violated their rights.
