ISLAMABAD: Civil society organisations working for the promotion and protection of child’s rights stressed the need for a strategy to ensure the implementation of laws to meet Pakistan’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) held a briefing session on “State of child rights in view of Pakistan’s international commitments” on Thursday.

Addressing the session held at the National Press Club, Khalil Ahmed Dogar, Sparc’s programme manager, said Pakistan was the sixth and first Muslim country that signed the UNCRC 30 years ago.UNCRC is often identified as the standard source for measuring child rights. It lists civil, political, cultural, social and economic rights of children, and acts as a standard for disseminating laws that might help protect the rights of children.

“But Pakistan still needs to work on the foremost infrastructural reforms that are required to uplift the living standard of children,” he added.

Mr Dogar said significant reforms were required to ensure that the rights of children were protected and delivered.

He said due to the lack of will among policymakers, Pakistani children were deprived of their rights to survival, protection and development.

Pakistan has low ranking on most of the child-related indicators of Millennium Development Goals with 22.84 million out-of-school children, which is the second highest in the world.

He said about 12 million children in Pakistan were engaged in labour force and many of them were involved in hazardous forms. The figure also includes over 1.2 million children living and working on the streets.

Child marriages, trafficking for commercial and sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse are also on the rise.

He called upon all political parties to unite and make across the board efforts otherwise children in the country will continue to suffer.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2021