On the occasion of International Children’s Day, a demonstration was organized in front of the Quetta Press Club under the sponsorship of Child Rights Balochistan to uphold the rights of children.
Mir Bahram Lahri, Abdul Hai Bangalzai, and other speakers addressed the protesters and stated that children’s laws are not being implemented, reported Pak vernacular media, Urdu Point. About five lakh children are subjected to physical assaults every year in Pakistan, according to a report released by child experts.
The report is a grim reminder of Pakistan’s human rights situation and rampant prevalence of child abuse in the country, reported Pakistan vernacular media, Sindh Express.
According to the report, around 46 lakh girl children are married at less than 15 years of their age, and about 1.90 crore children are married even before they are 18 years of age.
“We think the federal government should go for a crackdown against such malpractices; also those pressurizing children for begging be immediately arrested and be it, parents or guardians,” said the report.
Mir Bahram Lahri stated that they have been struggling for the last ten years regarding the child marriage bill and they are failing because of the lack of interest of their representatives, reported Urdu Point.
November 20 is celebrated across the world as Universal Children’s Day with various pledges to make the world a better place for children.
On 20 November 2022, it will be thirty-three years since the countries of the world, including Pakistan, came to a historic decision and recognized, for the first time in human history, that children have special rights and needs.
The members of the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Pakistan ratified it a year later, on 12 December 1990.
Pakistan at present has the highest percentage of children ever recorded in history.
Pakistan falls behind in almost all child rights indicators whether health, education, child marriages, protection from violence, child labour etc, reported Pakistan Observer.
The experts’ report further directed the government to take immediate concrete measures and to set up institutions or set up committees to deal with issues, reported Pak vernacular media.
Earlier, Pakistani newspaper The News International reported that the data revealed that during the past six months nearly 2,211 child abuse cases with both boys and girls were registered.
Notably, the data on the sexual abuse of children was collected from 79 newspapers. The majority of the cases can be categorised as rape, sodomy and abduction for sexual abuse, The News International reported.
Moreover, as per gender split analysis, the female reported cases of child sexual abuse are more in number than male cases.
Out of the total of 2,211 children, 1,004 were boys and 1,207 were girls, according to data collected by the publication.
The report further stated that nearly 803 boys and girls were kidnapped, and among them, 298 were boys and 243 were girls, who were allegedly either raped or sodomised, while numbers of gang rape/sodomy cases were also very high as 128 children were subjected for the physical abuse and among which 41 were girls and 87 were boys.
As many as 1,564 cases in Punjab, 338 cases in Sindh, 199 cases in Islamabad, 77 cases in KPK, and 23 cases in Baluchistan as well as 10 cases in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, were reported, the report stated.
Nearly 52 per cent of cases were reported from urban areas and 48 per cent of cases were reported from rural areas, it added.
The Human Rights Watch in its Annual World Report 2022 cited allegations of extensive rights abuses against women along with children in Pakistan, which ranks 167 out of 170 countries on the Global Women, Peace and Security Index.
