LAHORE, Nov 4: Speakers at a seminar on Tuesday stressed the need for implementation of child rights’ laws to protect them from abuses.

Human rights’ activists, writers, lawyers, journalists and representatives of various NGOs also demanded amendments to the relevant laws. They were speaking at a seminar on child abuse, organized by the AGHS at a local hotel on Tuesday.

Human rights’ activist Hina Jilani said the state required people’s help to improve the condition of deprived and oppressed children in society.

She said the NGOs working for the rehabilitation of children should fight for the protection of their rights. She said more philanthropists should come forward and extend their help in this regard.

She said the introduction of more child rights’ laws would be a futile effort unless the existing laws were strictly implemented.

The government should give priority to the issue so that the present state of children in the country could be improved.

She said that children should also be made part of their rehabilitation work. She said a children association had been formed and over 1,000 children had become its members across the province.

Punjab government’s adviser on child rights Dr Faiza Asghar said that the Children Ordinance, 1983, was not being implemented properly. It was also required to be amended extensively.

She said a draft in this regard was being prepared and would soon be presented in the Punjab Assembly for approval.

She said the government would also pick up special children, involved in begging, from the streets and shift them to the temporary and permanent rehabilitation centres.

Dr Faiza said she had held meetings with the district Nazims and asked them to set up such centres in their areas so that shelterless and beggar children could be provided with a place to live in.

There was also need to extend the network of Nighaban centres in the province to improve the condition of runaway children.

Dr Faiza said the juvenile justice system was not being properly implemented. “This provides no relief to the juvenile prisoners.” She would bring the issue to the notice of the authorities concerned to ensure its proper implementation.

The government was also planning to convert commissioners’ houses into the children recreational places in the province.

SSP (discipline) Chaudhry Shafiq said the police did not handle children properly. There was a need to bring about a positive change in police behaviour towards children.

He said an extensive training of the station house officers besides policemen was required to address the problem. He said the job of a policeman was very challenging and the recruitment should be made on merit.

Advocate Nazia Malik said the guardian courts were providing no relief to children. She suggested that separate courts should be set up to deal with cases involving children.

She said the child rights were also violated in the police stations. The police, on the pretext of producing children before the court, detain them in the police stations for over 24 hours.

Psychologist Saima Hasan highlighted various forms of child abuses. She said a child might be abused physically, emotionally and economically.

She said society did not give a child the status of a full-fledged citizen. She said that parents and teachers’ unnecessary bid to discipline children often distort their personalities.

She urged the parents and teachers to let their children exploit their energy and potential in a better way so that they could become good citizens.

Dr Khalil Ahmad highlighted the contents of a book, Tomorrow’s Children which he had translated.

He said the book was about the state of the Pakistani children who were deprived of basic education. He also expalined the curriculum-related problems faced by the primary and secondary students.

Shoaib Ahmed of the Children Association, Gulzar of the Dastak and Angelia of a German NGO also spoke.