Perspective

Insights From the 2023 Census Report

The 2023 Census conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics released its complete report in July 2024 indicates that the total population of Pakistan is 240 million out of which the population of children under 18 is 112 Million (47% of the total population). Children Population (under 18) Population under 18 Total Male Female Transgender Pakistan 112,472,700 58,099,978 54,370,121 2,601…

Permitted age for employment of children as domestic workers

Do you know what the minimum age is for children in the different provinces of Pakistan to be employed as domestic workers? Child labour is a provincial subject in Pakistan after the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010. The 18th Constitutional Amendment devolved the issue of labour and employment to the…

Juvenile Offenders in Punjab

The total number of convicted and undertrial juveniles imprisoned in various borstal…

Transport For Schooling

A JUDGE at the Lahore High Court recently ordered that schools should arrange for…

Invest in Education

Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which calls for inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. Unfortunately, the country remains far from achieving this target. According to media reports, the national literacy rate has reached 63%, with male literacy at 73% and…

Pakistan’s Silent Emergency: Why Our Children Need A National Anti-Drug Policy Now

Every generation faces a defining challenge. For our parents, it was nation-building. For ours, it may well be saving our children from the growing menace of drugs. Across Pakistan, a silent epidemic is unfolding. Narcotics have found their way into our schools, colleges and universities, threatening not only individual lives…

Out-Of-School Children

It has been over two years since the country declared a National Education Emergency, but Pakistan is still stuck with the second-largest out-of-school population globally. A new comprehensive comparative policy review, prepared by the Civil Services Academy (CSA) and reported on by the media earlier this week, estimates that between…

HIV Crisis

From Taunsa, to Ratodero and now Karachi. It seems like there is not a town or city left in Pakistan where the country’s children are safe from HIV, one of the most dangerous diseases in the world. Last week, the Sindh labour minister reportedly confirmed that at least 78 children…

Umpteenth Polio Drive

Karachi is once again mobilising its army of 26,000 polio workers and thousands of police escorts – this time with an aim to vaccinate over 2.5 million children within six days. The resolve to launch this Herculean feat is impressive, and also quite familiar. For over three decades, in some…

Abuse Cycle

LULLED into a sense of false security by its own denial and apathy, Pakistan is a long way from achieving tangible solutions to the curse of child abuse. The state’s refusal to address the presence of this scourge, and the lifelong traumas associated with it, is a ticking time bomb…

Tuition Centre Tragedy

The deadly building collapse of a private tuition centre in Lahore is another reminder of the pathetic enforcement of building controls and the unscrupulous behaviour of the construction industry, which prioritises profits over safety. Reports said 14 children between the ages of five and 16 were killed after the roof…

No Sanctuary for Abuse

A place of learning should never become a place of fear. Yet another child has paid with his life for the unchecked culture of violence that continues to exist at places meant to educate. Fourteen-year-old Ali Haider, who had been sent to a madrassa, allegedly died from a brutal beating…

Protecting Our Children

When the most vulnerable members of a nation are repeatedly subjected to sexual violence, torture and murder, the crisis extends far beyond law and order. It becomes a moral failure. The past week has delivered two such horrifying reminders. In Sargodha, a seven-year-old girl was reported to have been sexually…

Another Child Dead

Karachi and Lahore are often pitted against each other as major urban cities with drastically different levels of development, be it in infrastructure, healthcare or security. While Karachi suffers from an ordained fate of broken roads and broken administrative promises, Lahore seems to be progressing full speed ahead. Although, there…

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