QUETTA: Speakers at a seminar on child rights have stressed the need for providing protection to street children and children working as domestic servants.

The seminar was jointly organised by Unicef, the government of Balochistan, Child Rights Movement and other organisations.

The speakers said street children were often subjected to sexual assault and they had no other option but to sleep on footpaths, railway stations or bus stands even in extremely cold weather.

Imtiaz Khan, the child rights protection expert of Unicef, said hundreds of thousands children lived at railway stations, truck and bus stands and footpaths where they were often sexually abused. He said no protection was provided to such children by the government.

He said children working as domestic servants were often tortured and they had to face different types of injustices.

Imtiaz Khan said the government departments concerned were doing nothing to provide protection to street children.

He said street children were often caught by police for committing minor crimes. They are sent to jails where they have to live in the company of professional criminals. It was generally observed that the children who spent time in jails became professional criminals and were involved in heinous crimes, he added.

He said although free education was the right of every child according to the Constitution of the country millions of children were out of schools. He called for free education for special children.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2014