PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on 13th August issued a notice to the Peshawar Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE), seeking its response to the petition of a visually impaired female student, who claimed that she was deprived of third position in the recently announced results of secondary school certificate examination in the arts group by arbitrarily altering her marks. A bench consisting of Justice Syed Arshad Ali and Justice Dr Khurshid Iqbal
Child Rights in Focus
LAHORE: The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) has launched Phase II of the School Nutrition Programmme. In this connection, a consultative meeting between the PFA and a UNICEF team was held on August 12, said a PFA handout. PFA Planning & Coordination Director Muneer Hussain Chopra gave a detailed briefing about the programme during the meeting. Unicef reaffirmed its commitment to work jointly with PFA on the programme as well as other initiatives. Both sides
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s environmental surveillance for July 2025 has shown remarkable progress in Balochistan, where only one sewage sample in Quetta tested positive for the poliovirus, signalling the province’s near interruption of transmission. However, Karachi continues to pose a serious threat as the largest urban reservoir of the virus, while Lahore is also sustaining transmission. Officials remain concerned about South Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to persistent access challenges hampering vaccination efforts. According to the latest data
ISLAMABAD: Highlighting the alarming situation of violence against children in the federal capital, with systemic gaps in the criminal justice system for such offenses, a civil society organisation has sought specialised investigation unit sought to handle child abuse cases and violence. In its report, the Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO) has described dangerous figures of violence of different natures in 2024. The report, based on data obtained through the Right to Information (RTI) law
SAHIWAL: A 12-year old seminary student was gang-raped by two youths on the mosque premises at Chak 90/6-R. According to reports, the victim, son of a grocery shop owner in the village had been attending the mosque for Hifz-i-Quran. The complainant said that over the past two weeks, he noticed his son looked distressed while sitting at the shop. On persistent inquiry, the boy disclosed that he had been repeatedly raped at gunpoint by
ISLAMABAD: First Lady Aseefa Bhutto Zardari, Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, and parliamentarians from across the political spectrum on 11-August-2025 signed a landmark joint declaration on gender, breastfeeding, and nutrition in Pakistan, pledging coordinated action to protect child health, empower mothers, and remove systemic barriers to optimal breastfeeding practices. The declaration, endorsed during the Parliamentarian Advocacy Forum on the Prevention, Protection and Support of Breastfeeding — jointly organised by UNICEF and the
In what is a significant achievement for both the province and the country, the government of Sindh has completed Pakistan’s first real-time digital birth registration. Baby Messam Abbas was officially registered at the moment of birth at the Sindh Government Hospital, Qasimabad, Hyderabad, through the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) Birth Registration/Notification Tool. Officials said this milestone was achieved under the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Pilot Project, launched in July 2025
GUJRANWALA: A 13-year-old domestic worker was allegedly tortured to death by her employers in Krishan Nagar (Faisalabad) locality of Gujranwala on August 11. In the first information report (FIR) lodged with Model Town police, Abid Ali, a labourer from Noshera Virkan, said that he had left his daughter, Erum, for work at the house of Maqbool, son of Haji Amin. On Monday, Amin telephoned him, claiming that Erum had suffered a heart attack and
TEACHERS and parents are both scrambling to prepare for yet another demanding academic year ahead. However, with the exception of the odd parent orientation at school, they are not engaging in any deep conversations about the students. Most students have not only been out of touch with subject knowledge, they have also had a long gap in social connections, work discipline and stringent schedules. Amidst the preparations, the focus on students is critical. As
SOUTH WAZIRISTAN: Terrorists blew up a government high school building in Birmal tehsil of Lower South Waziristan early on 10th August, the police said. Birmal circle DSP Asghar Ali Shah told Dawn on phone that terrorists planted explosives along the school’s boundary wall as well as inside the premises before fleeing the scene in Qara Bagh area of Azam Warsak. The blast, he said caused severe damage to the boundary wall and also destroyed several classrooms.
Pakistan has over 19 million child brides, but why does the law still allow underage marriage in most provinces? In this episode of Case In Point, host Rida Hussain breaks down Pakistan’s provincial child marriage laws and their contradictions.
The State of Children in Pakistan 2024 report was prepared by and launched on April 30 this year by the National Commission on the Rights of Child (NCRC). Established by the Federal Government on February 28, 2020 as an independent statutory body, the NCRC has the overarching mandate for the promotion, protection and fulfillment of child rights as enshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child