ISLAMABAD: The Cabinet Division has returned the National Child Protection Policy draft to Ministry of Social Welfare and Special Education, asking it to seek comments of Ministry of Finance before it could approve it, sources told Dawn.

This has happened when Pakistan had to report to the UN Committee on Rights of the Child next month that it had taken legal steps to protect rights of children.

The policy had been finalised by National Commission for Child Welfare and Development, Ministry of Social Welfare and Special Education, and was approved by ministries of interior, law and justice and women development before passing it on to the Cabinet Division for approval.

It was first prepared in 2006 as National Child Protection Bill but rejected by the cabinet and prepared as a policy. Since then it has been refused several times.

'There were 70 per cent chances that the policy would be approved by the cabinet. A major flaw is that there is no child specific budgeting in the policy, which is why the cabinet has returned it to seek comments from the finance ministry before approval,' said Rafiq Khan of Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc).

Senior officials in the Ministry of Social Welfare and Education also voiced their frustration after the cabinet returned the policy.

'This is not the first time. Official hiccups are always a problem. The cabinet had similarly returned the National Commission of the Rights of Children 2009 Bill to seek comments from Ministry of Finance,' said an official who eagerly sought approval from the cabinet before Pakistan presented the report before the UN in Geneva in the 52nd session.

To protect children against violence – physical, psychological, emotional, and gender-based abuse, neglect, discrimination and exploitation – a National Child Protection Policy is inevitable. Once approved, the policy would particularly protect interests of more than two million children born into poor households every year.

The new policy would address concerns of 15 to 20 per cent children in Pakistan who endure some form of sexual abuse, make child trafficking punishable and rescue more than eight million children under 14 from child labour.