HYDERABAD: A report quoting various national and international sources reveals that 25 million children (aged 5 to 16) are out of school in Pakistan of which 13 million are girls.

Launching the annual report about the state of Pakistan’s children at a programme held at the local press club on Tuesday, Society for Protection of Rights of Child (Sparc) regional manager Kashif Bajeer said Pakistan also had missed its targets set under the Education for All and the Millennium Development Goals (Goal 2) 2015.

The event was attended by state functionaries, human and child rights activists, officials from national and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), representatives of donour agencies and children from Sparc’s centre for street children in Hyderabad.

Mr Bajeer said the situation compounded by the lack of infrastructure and teaching staff along with poor teaching standards in public schools which forced more children to drop out of schools.

With regard to child health in 2015, 54 cases of polio were reported from various parts of the country in comparison to 269 during the previous year, which was positive and hopeful.

However, children in Tharpar­kar, Sindh, were still dying of acute malnutrition, starvation and lack of basic healthcare, bringing the death toll of children to 143 by the end of 2015, he added.

Mr Bajeer said the maternal mortality ratio remained constant at 276 deaths per 100,000 births. These statistics showed that when it came to the progress of the government health sector, increased proactive measures must be taken to eliminate the various health crises afflicting the children of Pakistan.

The report also revealed that on the front of child labour, the absence of an up-to-date database of child labour was a major hindrance in formulating policies and legislation that would work towards elimination of child labour in Pakistan.

Moreover, there was an urgent need to ensure rights of these workers and to ban the employment of children in home-based industry and the domestic sector.

The report also identified the increasing prevalence of violence against children in the country by presenting statistics regarding child marriages, honour killings and child sexual abuse etc., in the country.

According to the report, the total number of child sexual abuse cases stood at 3,768 cases in 2015 i.e. 10 cases every day. It is disheartening to see that only after tragic incidents, the government did not take serious action to protect the rights of children by enacting legislation.

He said that approximately 21 per cent of girls in Pakistan were married before the age of 18 while 40 cases of acid attacks were reported to the Acid Survivors Foundation.

HRCP Hyderabad task force head Dr Ashothama Lohana said that mostly children fell prey to the armed groups and they were also being misused as sexual workers. No survey had been conducted so far properly for street children.

Others who also spoke on the occasion included Sparc’s provincial manager Zahid Thebo and Child Protection Unit (CPU) Hyderabad incharge Muneer Bhatti.

Published in Dawn, June 1st, 2016