A minor girl employed as a domestic help had allegedly been tortured by her employer and his two sisters to death in Nemat Colony No 2 locality of Faisalabad. According to the first information report (FIR) registered under sections 302 and 34 of the the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), complainant Ghulam Murtaza of Chak 229-RB, Makkuana, said his daughter Ayesha Bibi, 11 years old, was employed as a domestic help in the house of
Child Rights in Focus
Residents of Bannu district, including political and social activists, have asked the provincial government to upgrade the school for children with disability to high level. Talking to reporters on 23rd Feb 2024, they said the population of differently-abled children was in the thousands but they lacked educational and other facilities. They said the social welfare department had set up the school for children from Bannu, Lukki Marwat and North Waziristan districts, and keeping in
THIS is with reference to the report `Man kills wife, three kids before committing suicide` (Jan 23). According to a survey, between 15 and 35 individuals take their own lives in Pakistan every day. Shockingly, Pakistan is ranked 72nd globally, with a suicide mortality rate of 9.8 per 100,000 population. What is even more concerning is the year-on-year increase in the suicide mortality rate. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there were 7.3
KARACHI: Police on 23rd Feb 2024 registered a murder case and launched a probe after an autopsy found that a teenage girl, whose body was found in her Korangi home a day before, was actually raped and murdered. The body of the teenager was found hanging from the ceiling of her home and initially it was said that she had died by suicide. However, police raised doubts that the roof of the room was
The World Day of Social Justice is celebrated every year on February 20. The International Labour Organization (ILO) unanimously adopted the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization on June 10, 2008 and termed equal opportunities for development and seeking justice as important pillars for the prosperity of the nation. Climate change is a global challenge that is creating problems of social justice in multiple ways. There are socioeconomic and geographical structural
KARACHI: Highlighting Pakistan`s polio-related challenges, experts at a session held on 22nd February 2024 identified vaccine hesitancy as a significant barrier to the immunisation coverage, particularly in Karachi, a city with the highest refusal rate for polio vaccination in the country. The problem, it was pointed out, had more to do with people`s attitudes than literacy levels. The experts were speaking at an orientation session organised byEmergency Operations Centre for Sindh (EoC) for journalists
KARACHl: A sessions court has sentenced a man to 10-year rigorous imprisonment on charges of raping an underage girl at an orphanage. Additional District and Sessions Judge (East) Ilyas Memon found accused Mehdi Hassan, a former employee of the orphanage, guilty of raping the teenage girl at a private shelter home in May 2021 within the jurisdiction of the Jamshed Quarters police station. The court imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on the convict and
The Lahore High Court (LHC) has recently ruled that the Punjab government must establish rules under the Punjab Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2014, to ensure the compliance with this law at private schools. The ruling comes after a private school filed a petition against the denial of a registration certificate by the District Registration Authority in Sahiwal. It also sheds light on the persistent challenges facing the education sector in Pakistan, including issues
According to a news report, an environmental sample collected from Balochistan’s Lasbela district has tested positive for wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1). The virus was found in a sewage sample collected from Lasbela, an official of the Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH) said. Federal Health Minister Dr Nadeem Jan said that as long as this virus survives, children on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border, and
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) on Tuesday informed the Sindh High Court that it had no authority to remove any content from social media platforms. The lawyer for the PTA sought more time to file comments on a petition filed against objectionable, unethical, immoral and unlawful content being uploaded on social media platforms. At the last hearing, the SHC had directed the PTA to enforce relevant law and rules to prevent and remove objectionable content on
In Pakistan, there is a rare consensus across political divides and among citizens concerning the dire state of education. Whether it is primary, secondary, or tertiary education, the system’s deficiencies are glaring. At present, there are a staggering 20 million children out of school, representing 40 per cent of the school-going age group. Also, there are nearly 20 million children who attend public-sector schools or low-quality private schools, where learning outcomes are far from
ANIC is on the rise as the alarming surge in pneumonia cases has created an explosion of headlines sans information about prevention and cure. The menacing respiratory affliction has taken an ugly turn: this paper reported yesterday that a shocking 622 cases had come to light over 24 hours in Punjab and 13 more minors had died of the virus. Last month, some 50pc samples from ailing children tested positive for viral pneumonia, with