ISLAMABAD: The Annual State of the Children Report 2016 was launched on Thursday which said there is an absence of necessary measures for protecting children despite growing incidents of violence and abuse against them.

Launched by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc), the report said over 22 million children in the country are out of school and that over the years, this number has only reduced marginally. It says the record of the provincial governments for utilising allocating funds is not very encouraging.

Nearly half of all children in Pakistan are severely malnourished, undermining their mental and physical growth, it says and that Pakistan remains one of the only two countries on the polio-endemic nations list and shares more than half the global polio burden.

It says the condition of healthcare can be analysed by the fact that Pakistani policymakers prefer foreign healthcare facilities rather than public or even private hospitals in Pakistan for their own treatment.

The report questions the poor implementation of Article 25-A of the Constitution which gives every child the right to education and that child labour, particularly in sectors like agriculture, factories, brick kilns, street vending and car workshops remains unaddressed. It says legislation for curbing domestic child labour is yet to be introduced and that many bills associated with the prohibition of child labour are still stuck in various government departments.

“Rights of minorities and of the disabled seem even harder to come by as both vulnerable groups face discrimination in the social, economic and political realms,” the report says in regards to violence against children.

Speaking at the launch, Sparc Executive Director Sadia Hussein said there has been progress in terms of legislation related to child rights but Pakistan still lags behind international standards due to the poor implementation of existing child protection laws as well as a general lack of awareness on key issues.

Explaining the report’s findings, its key researcher Farshad Iqbal said 2016 came with the stark revelation that Pakistan has not achieved its targets under the UN’s Millennium Development Goals the reasons for which are not hard to identify considering nearly 22 million children are out of school and half the children are malnourished.

“The Human Capital Development Report 2016 has also ranked Pakistan at 118. The situation calls for immediate and effective policy measures with a strong adherence to and implementation of existing legislation, a future course of action that can help Pakistan achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030,” he said.

Consisting of a multi-faceted overview of the state of the country’s children, the report has for the last two decades been systematically documenting the evolution of child protection laws, social attitudes and key developments, with an annual overview of the state of child rights in Pakistan. This includes detailed figures of the state of education, health, juvenile justice, violence against children and child labour across Pakistan.

Speaking at the event, Minister of State for Education Balighur Rehman said that the government has over the last three years, made a concerted effort towards improving the lives of children which is evident, for example in the increase in the Higher Education Commission’s allocated budget from Rs40 billion to Rs90 billion for tertiary education. He claimed the rate of enrolment in schools has also gone up the last three years.

National Commission for Human Rights chairman retired Justice Ali Nawaz Chohan criticised the government for making too many laws without focusing on implementation mechanisms. Sparc also gave Eiza Abid its Child Award for Excellence for her contributions towards ensuring child rights. Awards for child sensitive reporting were also presented to journalists.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2017