Out-of-school children are children aged 5 to 16 who have never attended school and children who attended school and then dropped out. According to PSLM 2019-20, the proportion of children not attending school is 32 percent nationally in 2019-20. A regional comparison shows that the proportion of children out of school is higher in rural areas, at 37 percent, than in urban areas, at 22 percent. Punjab has the lowest number of children out
Child Rights in Focus
The Child Marriage Restraint Act 1929 was drafted by Quaid-i-Azam- Mohammad Ali Jinnah (Father of the Nation) and introduced by a Hindu, Rai Haridas Sarda, and is also known as the Sarda Bill. Jinnah was very concerned about the widespread child marriage in British India, which he considered a violation of the fundamental rights of young girls and a major obstacle to their education and development. In 1927, Mohammad Ali Jinnah introduced a bill
According to Sahil (a non-governmental organisation working for the protection of children), a total of 4,253 cases of child sexual abuse were reported in 2022 in Pakistan. These child sexual abuse cases were reported from all four provinces of Pakistan, including Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B). The data shows that there are cases of child sexual abuse, abductions, missing children and child marriages. Based on the statistics,
Honourable Justice BABAR SATTAR of the The Islamabad High Court Issuing a written order on the plea of a woman seeking recovery of her 16-year-old daughter who had filed an affidavit to say she had tied the knot of her own free will. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) declared the marriage of anyone under 18 years of age as being unlawful. A child is defined as a person who has not attained the age
Enactment and enforcement of legislation against child marriage has repeatedly run into resistance that claims religious authority. Overcoming this resistance will require a wider intellectual engagement with the foundations and structure of religious thought. Consider. The latest report on Pakistan, based on figures contained in the Unicef database 2016, issued by the Center for Reproductive Rights makes for grim reading: “Child marriage in Pakistan constitutes an ongoing human rights violation on a large scale.
HEALTHY human capital is a critical gauge of economic stability. The money spent on healthcare is a major determinant of economic growth which can help increase income levels. According to S.J. Mushkin’s hypothesis, it is an investment that concerns the national economy and aids in high productivity and prosperity. Likewise, learning skills have a pivotal role in economic growth; these are enhanced when mental, physical and nutritional needs are fulfilled. A healthy nation brings
“Towards a Resilient Education Recovery from Pakistan’s Floods” is a research report published by the Pakistan Coalition for Education (PCE), an initiative of Society for Access to Quality Education. The report, authored by Dr. Moizza B Sarwar, a development expert and Research Associate at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford, collabroatively with Education Champions Network and supported by Malala Fund, examines Pakistan’s education response following emergencies. The report aims to
Leading economists of Pakistan say that ‘population explosion’ is one of the biggest — if not the biggest — economic challenges facing the country. Pakistan has the fastest-growing population in South Asia with a fertility rate that is almost twice as high as that of India, Bangladesh and Nepal. A rapidly growing population of course puts strain on limited resources and is, therefore, a cause for serious concern. But Pakistan’s ‘population explosion’ is not
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 provinces and each province is now responsible for enacting and implementing its own labour laws. There are two types of laws that have prohibits
This case involves the future of a young girl (Meher Fatima) who lost her mother to epilepsy when she was barely two years old. At the time when her mother was unwell and subsequently in hospital, she was at the house of her maternal grandmother being looked after by her maternal family, including a maternal uncle and unmarried aunt along with the grandmother. The dispute regarding the child’s guardianship arose three months after the
A nice year old Hajra visited the paediatric ophthalmology department at our hospital with complaints of decreased vision. An examination revealed that her visual loss was significant and irreversible in both eyes. All that could be done at this stage was to prevent further loss of vision by surgery. Hajra is one of the many unfortunate children whose vision has been compromised because of the injudicious use of over-the-counter steroid eye drops. These potent
As reported by Express News and Daily Tribune, a court in Faisalabad on March 11, 2023, sentenced a man involved in sharing child pornography to two years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 50,000. According to a spokesperson for the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the accused, Asif Mehmood Raza, had shared child pornography- related material in various WhatsApp groups in 2021. The Faisalabad FIA Cyber Crime Circle took action and registered a case against