ISLAMABAD, June 20: Infant and maternal mortality rate in Pakistan is the highest among Saarc countries and one child dies in the country every minute from EPI disease, diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections.

This has been revealed in a report titled “State of Pakistan’s Children 2006” released by Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) here on Wednesday which paints a dismal and gloomy picture of the situation of children in Pakistan.

An estimated 10 million children are toiling away their childhood to supplement the family’s income. About 6.463 million children do not go to school, which is the second largest number of such children in a country. The number of street children is growing with almost 25,000 on the streets in Karachi alone, and almost four children are sexually abused daily.

The report says children born with low birth weight exceed 19 per cent. As many as 38 per cent of under-fives are victims of malnutrition with 13 per cent of them severely underweight. Complete eradication of polio still remains a challenge due to the resistance and rumours spread by clerics in the Northern Areas. And each year, major health concerns almost remain the same.

The report laments the fact that children in Pakistan face abuse in the safety of the home, in schools, on the streets, in place of work and at the hands of the law enforcement agencies, and in the name of honour. Abusers include parents, siblings, relatives, women, teachers, employers, police, and every adult who has the power to control the child.

According to the report, year 2006 witnessed a sudden and sharp increase in suicides among children and 180 children committed suicides.

Statistics collected by Sahil during 2006 shows a 50 per cent increase in the number of female abettors from 123 in 2005 to 351 in 2006. Total number of cases reported in 2006 are 2,447, including 1,794 (73 per cent) females and 653 (27per cent) males. Out of 4,953 abusers, most (81 per cent) were victim’s acquaintances.

Former chairman of Sparc’s Board of Directors and former Information Minister Javed Jabbar said: “The efforts and hard work of Sparc’s team have made it possible to publish ‘The State of Pakistan’s Children’ for the past ten years. With time the interpretative and dimensional aspects of the report have improved remarkably. No other publication in Pakistan offers in one single source such wide data on major child rights issues.”

Giving an overview of the report, Manager Promotion Fazila Gulrez said: “From the prevailing conditions it is clear that Pakistan is not only lagging behind in achieving all its Millennium Development Goals, Education For All targets and other international commitments, but it is far from ever achieving those targets which would go a long way in giving children a fair chance to become healthy, educated and productive citizens of Pakistan.”

Speaking on the state of juvenile justice in Pakistan Sparc’s Founder, Executive Director and now member of Board of Directors Anees Jillani said: “Child should not be stigmatised. He needs counselling, education, recreation and not confinement. When we are talking about juvenile justice we are not talking of big money. Only we need is principle understanding and compassion”.

Norwegian Ambassador James Bjorn said ‘State of Pakistan Children’ report was contributing to the awareness on child rights issues and it was steadily increasing. He said many NGOs were working in jails while many were trying to get in jails to help the children during their confinement.

Chairperson of Human Rights of Commissions of Pakistan and prominent human rights activist I.A. Rehman said: “The majority of problems of the children are due to poor situation of women in the society. If women are allowed to decide how to bring up their children, the situation of child rights could be better. Children are being taken for Jihad and abducted by religious leaders from Punjab. There are child soldiers in Pakistan.”

Sparc demanded compulsory, quality and uniform education for every child in Pakistan and called for a new countrywide survey of child labour to assess the magnitude of the problem.