KARACHI: Participants in a seminar on the country’s performance in implementing human rights laws with special emphasis on the United Nations recommendations were informed on Tuesday that the Sindh Human Rights Commission (SHRC) — the first in the country — was being publicly acknowledged as the number of complaints it was receiving was increasing with each passing day.

“Our commission remained a largely unknown entity for some time until it became known by the people, who are now contacting us in large numbers,” said retired Justice Majida Rizvi, chairperson of the SHRC, while speaking at the programme organised by the Child Rights Movement, a coalition of 43 child rights non-governmental organisations, in collaboration with the SHRC at a hotel.

She said primarily the SHRC with three members appointed by the Sindh government and four honorary members would work in Karachi and with the passage of time it would appoint its rights officers in all districts of Sindh.

“I go everywhere in Sindh and have resolved several human rights complaints, but with the passage of time we will be setting up offices in all districts,” said Justice Rizvi.

Speaking about the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), a mechanism under which the UN Human Rights Council examines human rights in every member state of the United Nations, she said the situation in Pakistan was not being factually narrated on international forums, which could tarnish its image even further.

“It is time for us to stop telling lies and correct the situation with sincere efforts,” she said, adding that even nationally, there was no coordination among the federal and provincial human rights institutions.

“We have rights violations everywhere. You will see frequent disappearances in Balochistan, Sindh and other parts of the country, cases of abuse of women, rape, etc are just a few examples of a bigger mess we are in.”

Zulfiqar Shah, joint director of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler), said human rights situation on the ground in Pakistan was completely different from the picture the authorities continued to paint to the UN and other international bodies. He said the country was in the eye of a storm when apart from the UPR, several other reviews and reports about the condition of rights in the country would soon be coming.

Iqbal Detho of the Save the Children said in the UPR each country was examined at one time every four years. The UPR was an intergovernmental process whereby the human rights records of a given country would be judged by other nations.

He said on Oct 30 in 2012, the situation of human rights in Pakistan was reviewed by the member countries on the Human Rights Council in Geneva, in which Pakistan was given concrete recommendations for taking appropriate administrative, legislative and other steps to improve the situation of children’s rights recognised in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Pakistan was urged to undertake measures to the maximum extent of its available resources, including the establishment of an independent monitoring mechanism, enact efficient legislation to prohibit and prevent employment of children as domestic workers, expedite the adoption of the Charter of Child Rights Bill at the national level pending for the past many years, strengthen measures aimed at providing protection and assistance to vulnerable segments of society, including children affected by natural disasters to protect them from human trafficking and exploitation at work.

Moreover, the country was urged to take steps to implement laws and policies with a view to eliminating early and forced marriages.

Other speakers said the Sindh government had made some significant policy level developments regarding child rights such as promulgation of the Sindh Child Protection Authority Act, 2011, the Sindh Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2013, the Sindh Protection and Promotion of Breastfeeding and Nutrition Act, 2013, and the Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2014 (Amendment).

Despite all these legislations, the overall child rights situation depicted a murky picture in Sindh, they said.

They said that children were facing a host of issues within Sindh such as child marriage, child labour, child begging, corporal punishment, and child sexual abuse.

The audience was informed that a trend of child marriage had been perpetuating in various areas of Sindh.

In 2012, 12 cases of child marriage were reported in the province. However, thousands of child marriage cases remained unreported. Recently, the government of Sindh promulgated the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2014 (Amendment), which could help in reducing the child marriage cases if it was implemented in letter and spirit.

Jamil Junejo said after the 18th Amendment, Sindh had to adopt or bring new law on employment of children, which could provide foundation for further institutional and fiscal arrangements to effectively check child labour issues in Sindh.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2014