KARACHI, Feb 24: Speakers at a seminar expressed concern over the children’s rights situation in the country and demanded that concrete steps be taken so that the status of children could be improved and they could be given their due rights.

Speaking at the seminar held here on Saturday on “Child rights: are we doing enough,” organized jointly by the British Council (BC), Unicef, Sindh Education Foundation (SEF), Children’s Museum for Peace and Human Rights (CMPHR), Society for Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) and Save the Children UK (SCUK), they said that though the government had signed various international agreements, very little concrete work had been done to improve the status of children in society.

Anita Ghulamali of the SEF, pointing to the issue of child labour, said that with the passage of time, despite the government’s claims poverty had increased and if a working child, whose wages were supplementing the family income, was taken away from work and sent to school, the entire family would suffer.

She suggested that centres be established where working children were not only provided an education but were also taught some technical skills after their work hours, so that the family did not suffer economically and the child also became literate and improved its skills, which in turn would improve its income as well.

Mannan Rana of Unicef said that though Pakistan had ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child over a decade ago and was bound to take steps according to it, very little had been done in this respect and children were still being exploited.

Zulfiqar Ali of CMPHR stressed the need to give children their space, which was not being given to them and as such, the relationship between an adult and a child was that of a colonizer and a colonized.

Salam Dharejo of SPARC, pointing towards child militancy, said that in the name of jihad, a chilling surge in the recruitment of children in jihadi forces had been witnessed recently, as militants had recruited young soldiers to train them for suicide attacks, while in the urban areas, young children were mostly involved in crimes like robbery, motorcycle and mobile phone snatching and killings.

Nisar Nizamani of SCUK said that Pakistan is a source, transit as well as destination country for child trafficking victims.