LAHORE, Oct 17: Speakers at a seminar unanimously resolved that the situation of child rights was deteriorating due to extremely low budgetary allocations for children in Punjab.

Speaking at the seminar arranged by the Child Rights Movement Punjab and the Social Welfare Department in collaboration with the Save the Children on “Resources Allocations for Children” at a local hotel on Wednesday, speakers said the Punjab government should increase development budget to ensure the provision of services and to meet the unaddressed issues of children across the province.

CRM’s Iftikhar Mubarak stressed that the government should allocate budget for promotion and protection of child rights.

Journalist Iftikhar Ahmad said resources came through the tax system, which was dysfunctional and ineffective in the country.

He said the Punjab government was not serious about its own children.

Social Welfare and Women Development Director General Malik Muhammad Aslam pledged to work for good governance through more budgetary allocations for social and welfare needs of children.

Punjab Health Director-General Dr Nisar Ahmed Cheema said the government had allocated Rs500 million for children wards in government hospital in the city.

Wajahat Ali Farooqi from Save the Children said the Punjab government was not complying with the international commitments as well as with the national commitments given in the Constitution of Pakistan.He said, in 2012-13, budget allocations in education, health and social welfare had decreased as compared to the previous year (2011-12) -- education from 5.961 per cent to 4.946 per cent, health from 4.823 per cent to 4.576 per cent and social welfare from 0.64 per cent to 0.516 per cent.