LAHORE: Despite signing several international laws, the government has not been fully implementing them, especially those laws concerned with child rights.

This was discussed at a meeting on Friday where child rights activists gathered to give their opinion for the way forward as well as pointed out the problems.

Iftikhar Mubarik, child rights activist, said the basic problem was the lack of data collection, coupled with the fact that a simple policy change was needed for a better implementation mechanism, but this was not coming about.

“Our last data on child labour only was done in 1996, even before the census,” he said.

He said the government committed to international laws but did not fully comply with them. It did not even have proper mechanisms to comply, case in point being the National Action Policy.

“The lack of interest given to the welfare of children means that they are obviously not the priority,” he said. CRM Member Miqdad Naqvi said the recently adopted global agenda post 2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs) also stressed the government to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children, while SDG 8.7 stressed immediate measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms. He urged the government to establish a mechanism to trickle down international commitments into national and provincial policies and legislation.

He said we had not two laws, internationally mandatory, under all the conventions we have signed and they were ‘Juvenile Justice Law’ and ‘National Commission for the Rights of the Child’. He added child domestic labour, which is seen modern day slavery, was still not recognised as a crime in Pakistan, while the child marriage act also has loopholes.

“To this day we have not come up with a definition of child because in each of the laws it varies,” said Mr Mubarik.

He said in the Child Marriage Act, the age for boys is 18 years and girls 16 years. In other places a child must get free and compulsory education till age 16 years. But for brick kiln child labour age limit is 14 years.

CRM Provincial Coordinator Rashida Qureshi said they regretted that the governments had not followed recommendations by the Committee on the Rights of Child in 2009 and 2016.

The observations (2009) recommended the establishment of effective mechanisms to receive, monitor and investigate reports of cases of child abuse, including intervention and referral where necessary, and, when required, prosecute perpetrators in a manner that is child sensitive and ensures the privacy of the victims.

She said civil society had not introduced solid measures to deal with issues impacting the lives of children.

Mubarik added that in 2009 the UN Committee recommended to strengthen the labour inspectorate and provide the labour inspectors with all the necessary support, including child labour expertise, with a view to enabling them to monitor effectively at the state and local level the implementation of labour law standards and to receive, investigate and address complaints of alleged violations and continue the collaboration with NGOs, civil society and the International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour of ILO while in 2016 the UN Committee reiterated same recommendation means government was not able to meet its international obligations under the UNCRC.

He also added that in 2012, the government during Universal Periodic Review (UPR) also accepted recommendation made by Republic of Belarus asking to develop a comprehensive strategy to prevent sexual exploitation of children which is also still unaddressed and Pakistan is again going to be reviewed by Human Rights Council under UPR in Nov 2017.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2017