Child Rights in Pakistan-Universal Children’s Day
The Universal Children’s day was marked to celebrate
the UNCRC which 24 years ago was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 20th
November 1989 and Pakistan was one of the first 20 countries to become a
signatory of the convention and ratified the UNCRC in 1990.
The UNCRC has 54 Articles,and
the first article defines a child as an individual below the age of 18.
Although Pakistan has ratified the UNCRC, but it has failed to fulfil it’s
obligations towards the rights of children.
Soaring numbers of street
children, baggers, child prostitutes, increased child mortality rate, increased drop out rate of school children and many other similar issues related to
children is an alarming sign for Pakistan and its future.
The very basic step that our
country lacks is inappropriate law and legislative measures to provide
protection to its children. Pending bills related to child rights such as the
National Commission on the Rights of Children Bill 2001, Criminal Law Amendment
bill 2009, Prohibition of Corporal Punishment bill 2010 and the Child Marriage
Restraint Amendment Bill 2010 are some of the examples those need due attention
of the governmental and political authorities for their enactment.
On the other hand laws those
have been enacted, such as the ICT right to free and compulsory education act
passed in 2012 is still not implementable.
Looking at the measures taken
for the implementation of the enacted laws, one of the reasons usually quoted
by the concerned authorities for not implementing the enacted laws is lack of
resources and budget for their implementation.
If we compare the available
resources in Pakistan with the other South Asian countries, those have done
very well in improving their education rate such as Sri Lanka, it appears that
Pakistan has almost double of its resources available for a certain number of
population than Sirilanka has. Whereas Sirilanka is quiet close to attain 100%
literacy rate. Similarly civil society organizations(NGOs) in Pakistan have also
practiced the multiple utilization of existing resources in, which have proven
to be successful.
Apart from the lack of law
and legislation on child rights and their implementation, lack of awareness
among our masses on child rights and seeking justice is another issue. This
hinders the provision of child rights and child protection.
The strong traditional cult
of following elders usually men as the absolute decision makers for everyone in
the family/tribe as heads of the family/tribe, also result in violence against
children. One of the most violent forms of these violence are early and forced
marriages (Vani,Sawara, Pait Likhi etc... ) or child sexual abuse.
The statistics available with
one of CRM’s members, show that majority of children get sexually abused by
people to whom they have acquaintance with and are physically more powerful. It
also shows that children are threatened not to disclose the secret of abuse.
To address these forms of
violence against children, the first and foremost step that needs to be taken is
the participation of the child in identifying and addressing his/her issues.
Parents and then the community and other social circles in which the child lives
are second in this process so that a child knows how to protect her/himself in
threatening situations.
With these few identified
issues the Child Rights Movement (CRM) Pakistan on the Universal Day of
Children urged the Prime Minister of Pakistan for the establishment of the
National Commission on the Rights of the Child, allocating funds for the
promotion of the child rights and enactment of long pending bills on child
rights which the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child have
repeatedly recommended to Pakistan.