BAHAWALNAGAR: The Minchinabad Police have been allegedly ignoring court orders in a minor’s rape case even after a court ordered to register FIRs against four SHOs concerned and prohibiting the case investigating officer (IO) from any public role on account of the misconduct. As per details, a cleric was arrested on July 13 for sexually assaulting his 14-year-old student over a two-year period and impregnated her. During a court hearing on July 14, IO
Child Rights in Focus
MAILSI: An eighth-grade student was allegedly tied up with ropes and subjected to physical assault by influential villagers who suspected him of stealing pigeons in Chak 187-WB, prompting his family to seek police action and protection. According to the family, the incident took place in the jurisdiction of Tibba Sultanpur police station. The student, identified as Farhan, was allegedly detained by influential residents of the village on suspicion of stealing pigeons. The suspects allegedly
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan recorded 1,914 reported cases of child abuse during the first six months of 2026, including more than 1,000 cases of child sexual abuse, according to a new report released by child protection NGO Sahil. The report also documented hundreds of abductions, missing children, child marriages and cases involving child pornography. The report, compiled from incidents published in national and regional newspapers across all four provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Azad Jammu and
THE Sindh government’s agreement with the World Bank to combine health, nutrition, sanitation, social protection and agriculture programmes acknowledges that child stunting cannot be treated by the health department alone. The proposed secretariat, district committees and dashboard could replace scattered schemes with targets and accountability. But institutional architecture will mean little unless it reaches mothers and children consistently. More than 40pc of Pakistani children under five are stunted, while Unicef estimates that nearly 10m
RAWALPINDI: A six-year-old girl went missing and was suspected to have been swept away in an open drain/nullah near Committee Chowk, Lunda Bazar, in the early hours of August 6. However, on the complaint of the girl’s father, the City police later registered a kidnapping case and launched an investigation. According to initial reports, the girl’s father was putting children in his car to return home after visiting his relatives when the girl, Hareen
KARACHI: The Senate committee on August 6 sought details of the Sindh Healthcare Commission’s (SHCC) findings from its recent inspection of Kulsoom Bai Valika Hospital, run by the Sindh Employees Social Security Institution (SESSI), where nearly 100 children were found to be infected with HIV/AIDs. It also asked the provincial authorities to assess, in light of those findings, whether the facility should be granted a licence, which it has yet to obtain. The directives were issued
THE deaths of 144 children from measles and diphtheria in Karachi during the first seven months of the year expose a grave failure of routine immunisation. That failure is evident in the large number of children who receive their earliest vaccines but are never brought back for the doses needed to complete their protection. Officials may cite a decline in reported cases, but that offers little comfort when hospitals continue to record such a
EVERY year in August, Breastfeeding Week arrives with the same kind of messaging all over the media: ‘breastfeeding is best’. That is where the conversation begins and ends. This year, the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, alongside Unicef and the WHO, has deliberately questioned the math behind it all, instead of general awareness. The 2026 theme is ‘Breastfeeding for a sustainable start in life: strengthen what works’. This signifies that the world does not
PESHAWAR: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) Peshawar on August 4 declared the results of the annual Secondary School Certificate (SSC) examinations, with around 30 per cent of 10th-grade students and nearly 60 per cent of 9th-grade students remaining unsuccessful. According to the exam result gazette issued by the BISE Peshawar, 95,496 students sat the grade 10 board exam but around 30 per cent of them (27,788) failed to pass it. The
Karachi Police Arrest 17-Year-Old Relative for Alleged Rape, Murder After Toddler Dies in Qayyumabad
The Karachi police apprehended a 17-year-old suspect over alleged sexual assault after a one-and-a-half-year-old girl died in Qayyumabad on August 5. The first information report (FIR) was registered today at the Defence Police Station under Section 302 (murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) on the complaint of the victim’s father against the suspect — a relative of theirs. The FIR said the complainant received a telephone call from his wife on Tuesday night
Last Sunday at around 11pm, I went to a restaurant about two miles from my home with my wife and children for dinner. As we sat waiting for our meal, two little girls, who appeared to be between 10 and 12 years old, approached our table carrying crunchy Papadom. They politely requested that we buy one. We declined to buy the snacks because we had no desire for them. Is it not an injustice
A PROJECTION that Pakistan’s population could reach 400m by 2040 should not be treated as another dramatic number to be quoted at ceremonies and forgotten by the next budget. It is a warning about the size of the state’s future obligations. Every additional child will need vaccination, nutrition, schooling, safe water, transport and, eventually, work. Yet the present system already fails millions on each count. The issue, therefore, is not that families are having