perspective-child rights

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…

Transport For Schooling

A JUDGE at the Lahore High Court recently ordered that schools should arrange for and organise transport for schoolchildren by the end of the winter break. The order came in the hearings on the case about smog in Lahore. The use of public transport for schooling is expected to reduce vehicular traffic…

The Age Of Consent And The Borders Of Belief

ICT Child Marriage Restraint Act, 2025 marks a pivotal step toward a…

Ghost Schools

KARACHI: Apropos the letter “Ghost Teachers” published on September 19, 2024, the…

Students and Drug Addiction

The magnitude of drug abuse among students in Karachi continues to get worse, despite intervention efforts by the government and social welfare groups. While reliable data is hard to come by due to taboos around the subject, a 2024 survey by the Pakistan Narcotics Control Board found that 44% of…

Uneducated and Unwell

Pakistan’s Economic Survey 2025-26 offers a useful yardstick to gauge the state of the country’s health and education sectors over the past year. The assessment, however, offers little cause for celebration. Beneath the government’s claims of gradual progress, Pakistan continues to rank among the poorest performers in South Asia on…

Drugs and Teens

A DECADE ago, during one of the ‘Growing Up’ sessions I was holding in Karachi schools, I talked to seventh graders about drugs and addiction. Their interest and giggling prompted me to ask whether they knew where drugs could be obtained. They named several locations. Later, I realised that drug…

Polio Progress

PAKISTAN’S latest sub-national polio campaign offers encouraging evidence that the country can still push back against a virus that has proved stubbornly difficult to eliminate. Reaching more than 18.6m children across 79 high-risk districts and achieving 98pc coverage is no small feat. Behind it was the dedication of over 163,000…

Raised on Fear

One day Suhana, a Year 6 student, entered the classroom with tears in her eyes. Her teachers had noticed that she had become unusually quiet over the past few months and was continuously failing her assessments. Teachers often called her out, asking her to focus more on studies and improve…

Child Nutrition Crisis

Pakistan’s child nutrition crisis has long been treated as a welfare issue when, in reality, it is a national emergency with generational consequences. To cater to this worsening crisis, Unicef has partnered with the University of Health Sciences to launch a capacity-building programme aimed at incorporating nutrition and child health…

The Polio Fight Goes On

It is enough of an ignominy that this country is one of only two, the other being Afghanistan, where polio still remains endemic. However, it is even more shameful that even those brave souls who are trying to eradicate this disease from the country are routinely the target of violent,…

Enrolled, But Not In School

Twenty million children are characterised as ‘out of school’ in Pakistan. This figure is alarming on its own. But there is a second, quieter crisis unfolding inside the school system that we’re neglecting. A crisis that never makes the headlines and a crisis no enrollment campaign will solve. When you…

A Better Start

THE first 1,000 days of a child’s life often shape decades to come. In Pakistan, where chronic malnutrition has long harmed childhood development, an evaluation of the Benazir Nashonuma Programme shows that some children are finally getting a better start. The Aga Khan University study found a 22pc reduction in…

Education Corruption

The expanding corruption probe into Sindh’s education boards has laid bare a rot that goes far deeper than initially feared. What began as an investigation into irregularities at the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Mirpurkhas, has now spiralled into a province-wide scandal, implicating senior officials and the administrative hierarchy…

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