KARACHI: Speakers at a consultation on budgetary allocation for children on Wednesday called for increasing overall spending in the sector, especially allocation for education, child health and nutrition and child protection.

The event was organised by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) in collaboration with Save the Children (Pakistan).

Expressing concern over the status of children’s rights in the country, senior development expert Gul Mohammad Mastoi described inadequate spending as the key reason behind Pakistan’s failure in achieving most child-related indicators of Sustainable Development Goals.

“Special measures are required to safeguard the rights of vulnerable children,” he noted, emphasizing that budgetary allocations should be more focused on development and include a higher proportion of non-salaried expenditure.

Shumaila Muzammil representing Sparc regretted that despite enactment of multiple legislations, children were still deprived of their rights to survival, protection and development.

“The Sindh government should make the Sindh Child Protection Authority (SPCA) fully functional without further delay to ensure Pakistan’s compliance [with] international commitments on children’s rights,” she said.

Provincial minorities director Abdul Shakoor Abro admitted government’s slow progress in the sector and said that while a number of laws pertaining to children’s rights had been made, their implementation remained a challenge.

SCPA director Fauzia Masoom said the authority was currently running 30 child protection units all over Sindh and a helpline was also available. “We are engaging more human resources that will help to work more actively in the best interest of children,” she said.

Child rights activist Kiran Zubair spoke of the need for major infrastructural reforms to uplift the status of children in the country.

“Whether it’s health and nutrition, hazardous labour, early marriages, trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation, significant reforms are required to ensure that rights of all children are protected and delivered,” she said.

Sharing data on children, Kashif Mirza recalled that Prime Minister Imran Khan in his first speech to the nation talked about the dire state of children’s health in Pakistan. “Despite such big commitments, we see that there is still no improvement in this sector. In the budget, there is no special allocation for child health and nutrition,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 25th, 2021