ISLAMABAD: Around 10 children are abused daily in Pakistan and situation was worsening with every passing day mainly due to lack of implementation of child rights related laws.

This information was shared at a seminar held here on Thursday over ‘Legislative Development and State of Child Rights in Pakistan’.

The seminar focused on enforcing children’s rights in the country which requires resource allocation as well as a holistic approach.

The situation blamed on lack of implementation of child rights related laws

The seminar was organised by Child Rights Movement (CRM) Pakistan — a coalition of more than 500 NGOs and concerned individuals working for the promotion and protection of child rights in Pakistan.

As the key speakers of the seminar urged for proper implementation of child rights related laws and showed great concern over the increasing cases of violence against children, CRM and all civil society members and organisations launched a national campaign: Pakistanis Against Child Abuse (PACA).

National launch will be followed by the provincial launches by all the chief ministers and then district level launches by the deputy commissioners so that the campaign reaches out every corner of the country.

The speakers also said that despite the death sentence to the culprit of Zainab’s killer in short time, rising in the cases of sexual violence indicates that child protection system needs to be strengthened.

Minister of State for States and Frontier Regions Division(Safron) Shehriyar Afridi assured that the government was aware of the rights of children and increase in issues of child rights violation.

He said the prime minister had also expressed concerns over the situation.

“It is our prime agenda that no child in Pakistan is suffering from violence, exploitation and child right related problems,” the state minister said and asked the civil Society to identify and resolve these problems.

“Children are the future of Pakistan and we can go to any extent to protect them,” Mr Afridi said and announced to support the campaign Pakistanis Against Child Abuse for a broader level awareness.

Executive Director CRM Sahil Manizeh Bano said the poor implementation of child rights related laws was the biggest challenge for providing a safe secure and protected environment for children.

“The government and particularly police, courts and other organisations needed to make sure that the law is enforced,” Ms Bano said and urged preventive actions and use of child protection mechanism widely across the country.

Valerie Khan, Executive Director, Group Development Pakistan stated that children rights in Pakistan had probably never been seen as a governance priority to this level before.

She said that some encouraging steps had been taken by the government to enforce child rights, yet the situation remains highly challenging.

To address the child rights situation, the government response is too often emotional and disorganised, not relying on evidence and research which unfortunately leads to ill-informed and hence inefficient policies,

Child rights experts Dr. Syed Safdar Raza and Arshad Mahmood said while discussing the need of child right legislation in Pakistan.

They said after the 18th Amendment, provinces in Pakistan had been largely authorised for legislation but still there is a lot to do with legislation.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2019