November 20, 2003

Though Pakistan is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC), the plight of many children in our country still remains grim, writes Mohammad Anwar on the occasion of Universal Children’s Day today (November 20)

“My name is Maya. I was born 14 years ago in a poor peasant family. There were already many children, so when I was born no one was happy. When I was still very little, I learned to help my mother and elder sisters with domestic chores. I swept floors, washed clothes, and carried water and firewood. Some of my friends played outside, but I could not join them.

“I was very happy when I was allowed to go to school. I made new friends there. I learned to read and write. But when I reached the fourth grade, my parents stopped my education. My father said there was no money to pay for the fees. Also, I was needed at home to help my mother and the others. If I were given the choice of being born again, I would prefer to be a boy.” This is the story of a young girl who sees no prospects for her future.

Children represent the future. Investing in children and their healthy development has benefits for society as a whole, for parents and families, and of course for the children themselves. But in our society children and their status present a very dismal situation at the national and local levels.

In the case of children’s rights Pakistan remains a feudal society, committed to maintaining traditions that over the centuries have served its upper castes well. The landlords, factory owners, exporters, industrialists, financiers, etc., oppose any reforms that might weaken their authority, lower their profit margins, or enfranchise the workers.

Today as another International Children’s Day is being celebrated, issuesadversely affecting children continue to be neglected nationwide. Universal Children’s Day should be treated as a special day for children when their rights as productive members of society are acknowledged.

Today is a day when we look at children differently and honour each child as a person in need of our continuous presence and protection; to please children around us, to take them where they long to go and play with them. But most importantly it is a day to reflect upon what we are giving our children. It is time for each and everyone of us to realize that there are unforgivable wrongs being inflicted on children; and these wrongs must be corrected because these innocent victims hold the key to our tomorrow.

On November 20, 1989 the United Nations General Assembly and the international community took a major step towards recognizing and ensuring the basic dignity and rights of children in all parts of the world, including their rights to survival, protection and development.

The United Nations declared a Convention on the Rights of Children (CRC) that outlines the range of rights that children everywhere are entitled to. It is the first legally binding agreement in history.

The CRC was completed and adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations and Pakistan ratified the CRC on December 12, 1990. It has 54 articles detailing the individual rights of any person under 18 years of age to develop to his or her full potential, free from hunger and want, neglect, exploitation or other abuses.

This universal treaty is based on the principle that each child has the right to benefit from provisions aimed at securing his or her well-being and develop into an active and responsible member of society.

The convention also recognizes the child as an individual with needs that evolve with age and maturity. It goes beyond existing treaties by seeking to balance the rights of the child, with the rights and duties of parents or others who have responsibilities for a child’s survival, development, protection and by giving the child the right to participation in decisions affecting both its present and its future.

Pakistan is among 192 countries of the world which have ratified the CRC. It is therefore Pakistan’s responsibility not only at the national level but also at the international one to protect children’s rights by ensuring them nutrition, health, education and training. Countries have ratified the CRC but have yet to make laws which are framed in accordance with the convention, and as a result children continue to be exploited and abused worldwide.

Government organizations are not the only ones that are meant to ensure that children’s rights are not violated; private organizations and international institutions are equally liable to uphold a child’s fundamental rights, for instance to health and education during the period.

A scenario of the worst forms of atrocities committed against children in Pakistan can be seen from the number of incidents of violence since January 1 to August 2003; 1,384 cases of physical and sexual abuse of children have been reported in prominent national as well as regional newspapers.

Research revealed that the print media highlighted 464 cases of murder, 300 cases of rape, 224 cases of sodomy, 175 cases of injury and 41 cases of torture. There were 25 cases of rape and 22 cases of sodomy in which the victims, boys and girls, were brutally murdered after rape or sodomy.

An analysis of this data shows that the male child is more vulnerable than the female as out of 1,384 reported cases 719 were committed against boys and 665 against girls.

The present government has drafted a National Action Plan for the elimination of child labour. This plan aims at the progressive elimination of child labour from all economic sectors, prevention of under age children into the labour market through universalization of primary education, family empowerment, rehabilitation of working children through non-formal education, prevocational training and skill development.

Earlier in this decade two labour laws meant to curb child labour practices were amended. The first, the Employment of Children Act of 1991, prohibited the use of child labour in hazardous occupations and environments. The second, the Bonded Labour Act of 1992, abolished indentured servitude and the Peshgi (advance) system.

On April 18, the government of Pakistan amended the Pakistan Citizenship Act 1951 to give nationality to children of Pakistani women married to foreigners. Previously, only the children of Pakistani men, married to foreign women were entitled to Pakistani citizenship.

Despite the recent series of laws prohibiting child labour and indentured servitude, children make up a quarter of the unskilled workforce, and can be found in virtually every factory, every workshop and every field. They earn on average one-third of the adult wages. Certain industries, notably carpet making and brick kilns, cannot survive without them.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Federal Bureau of Statistics, about 73 per cent of the workers (2.5 million) are boys and 27 per cent (950,000) are girls. About 2.1 million are in the 10-14 years age group, while the rest of them are between the age group of five and nine years.

A similar survey conducted by the federal government a few years ago, had placed the number of child workers at approximately 3.1 million. The latest survey concludes that more than 2.9 million children work in rural and 400,000 in urban areas of the country, making the number of working children, in rural areas, more than seven times that of the urban areas.

According to Unicef reports, eight million children under 14 are locked into child labour across the country; but these statistics are unreliable, as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) estimated the number of Pakistani working children to be “realistically in the region of 11-12 million.” At least half of these children are under the age of 10.

According to the Pakistan National Human Development Report, 2003, as many as 1,949 children suffered casualties at 200 different workplaces during the year 2002, due to the hazardous nature of their employment and an unprotected environment.

According to this report, in the construction business, 677 children were injured at 58 different workplaces, while 752 suffered casualties at 48 different steel window-manufacturing units. As many as 60 children were reportedly injured at 23 places with unsafe electrical fittings, 125 at 17 places of furnishing, 111 children at 11 different tile producing plants, 64 at eight units of cement production and 160 children suffered casualties at 35 different places during whitewash. In addition to this, a large number of child labourers were also sexually abused at workplaces.

It further disclosed that “out of every 1,000 children who survive infancy, 123 die before reaching the age of five. Of those who survive, a large proportion suffer from malnutrition which leads to impaired immunity and higher vulnerability to infections. The report also cited figures from the national health survey which showed that between 30 to 40 per cent (6.2 to 8.3 million children) suffer from stunting (low height for their age).

The report stated that children working with their families in agricultural operations like seedbed preparation, fodder cutting, rice planting, and harvesting were increasingly exposed to toxic substances from pesticides. The indiscriminate use of pesticides is responsible for growing health hazards, it added.

Poverty has forced many families to send their children, some as young as six, to find whatever work they can. Even Pakistani children are smuggled as camel jockeys to the Gulf states; some are sold by their parents and others are kidnapped by organized groups. They usually eat no more than leftovers and have no time to play or to make friends. They often live and work under dangerous and unhealthy conditions, and are deprived of rights such as health, education, recreation — even childhood itself.

Of the 104 million children in the country only around 50 per cent attend school. 50 per cent of those who do attend school drop out before they can even learn to read and write, while another 40 to 45 per cent leave school at the secondary level. This means that barely five to 10 per cent even complete 10 years of education.

Currently at least 4,000 children continue to remain under detention in jails across Pakistan. Some are as young as eight years old. While the failure to implement provisions of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance introduced last year means that many face the bleakest conditions of imprisonment, the situation is particularly bleak in the NWFP and the southern Sindh province.

Recently many young men were indoctrinated by religious conservatives, often without their parents knowledge, and were sent to Afghanistan to fight the war against the US.

The Pakistan government has taken a lot of initiatives for the eradication of child labour and for creating awareness among the masses to root it out from society. NGOs, trade unions, employers’ organizations and parents should also work closely with the government to give our children who hold the future in their hands and their rights.

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