LAHORE: The Children Advocacy Network (CAN), Pakistan has urged the Punjab government to take concrete actions to ensure child protection.

The civil society organisations, working under the umbrella of CAN Pakistan, gathered in Lahore from 18 districts of Punjab for a consultative workshop jointly arranged by the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), Punjab, and CAN Pakistan, where they demanded effective legislative and administrative actions to end all forms of violence, abuse and exploitation.

Participants in the meeting presented a set of recommendations to NCHR member Nadeem Ashraf to address the unaddressed issues to improve the likeliness of child protection.

CAN Pakistan proposed the government to approve the child protection policy followed by the allocation of financial and human resources to bring the commitments into actions, enactment of legislation and a robust monitoring system to prohibit corporal punishment in educational institutions, effective implementation of child labour laws by strengthening social protection schemes and programmes, promoting interdepartmental coordination to make sure that street connected children are able to receive education, identity, health and protection services without any discrimination.

CAN Pakistan showed concern at delay in implementation of “The Punjab Domestic Workers Act 2019” whose section 3 prohibits employing children under the age of 15 years for domestic work, and demanded Chief Minister Parvez Elahi to constitute a committee to evaluate the progress of this particular law and to make necessary amendments for securing the best interest of the children.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2022