Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani on 06-January-2025 said the government, the relevant civic agencies and the concerned public have to play their due role in preventing fatalities due to children falling into utility holes in Karachi. Ghani was speaking in the provincial assembly on the death of a child in Shah Faisal Colony due to falling into a utility hole a day earlier. The issue was raised in the House by PA opposition
Child Rights in Focus
ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly (NA) Standing Committee on Interior unanimously approved the Private member bill to establish child courts in child abuse cases and recommended that the bills be passed by the National Assembly. The private member Bill “The Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Bill, 2024” (sections 9A, 164A, 366A, and 497), moved by the PMLN MNA by Syeda Nosheen Iftikhar. The meeting of NA Standing Committee on Interior was held with the chair
LAHORE: A man who attempted to burn his ex-wife and children alive was arrested. A woman from Ghaziabad called 15 emergency helpline and reported that her ex-husband had tried to set her and the children on fire by pouring petrol on them. The woman, however, managed to escape to a neighbour’s house. The Safe City Authority spokesman said the police reached the site and protected the women and children. A case has been filed
PESHAWAR: Parents’ reluctance to vaccinate their children against polio continues to haunt their future in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In the December campaign, 111,118 children remained unvaccinated, up from 95,834 in the October-November drive. According to data compiled by officials of the Emergency Operation Centre (Polio) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, during the five-day campaign carried out from mid-December 2024, vaccinators covered 6.16 million of the total target of 6.42 million under-five children, which is 96 percent. However, the
The Sindh Education Department has decided to start the upcoming academic session 2025 from April 1, and has reduced the syllabus for the current session by 25%. As part of this decision, the matric and intermediate annual exams for the 2024 session, as well as exams for classes one to eight, will be held based on only 75% of the syllabus. Additionally, winter holidays have been revised and will now be observed from December
RAWALPINDI: The Punjab government has urged the federal government to complete pending work on the Rawalpindi Mother and Child Hospital before handing it over to provincial authorities. A senior official of the health department told Dawn that there were two proposals to make the hospital functional. One was to convert it into a general hospital to lessen the burden on three main hospitals of the garrison city including Holy Family Hospital, Benazir Bhutto Hospital
The Punjab government has decided to bind the public sector schools in the province to give admissions to differently-abled students on a priority basis. The initiative is part of an inclusive education policy set to be launched by the provincial government. According to officials, the admissions of differently-abled students will begin in the new academic year. Before the admissions, training of school teachers will be conducted across the Punjab on dealing with students with
The kidnapper used a phone number to contact the family and demand ransom. ISLAMABAD: Tarnol police on January 3 claimed to have arrested an alleged kidnapper who was involved in the abduction of a minor child for Rs5 million ransom. Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Operations Muhammad Arsalan Shahzaib told a presser that the suspect, along with his accomplices, abducted the child with the intent to demand a ransom of Rs5m. Upon receiving the
In an impactful awareness session organized by PODA at the Tehsil Municipal Corporation hall, participants unanimously supported a proposed amendment to the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 2015. The amendment seeks to raise the minimum marriage age for girls from 16 to 18 years, ensuring a safer and more empowering future for young girls in Punjab. This proposed change aims to protect adolescent girls’ fundamental rights, including access to education, reproductive health, and employment
KARACHI: Raising alarm over multiple outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases and deaths of a large number of children across the country, health experts said on 4th January that these precious lives could have been easily saved if the governments at the federal and provincial levels had taken timely measures and plugged the loopholes in the routine immunisation programme. Representing major tertiary care private and public sector hospitals, the experts also said the health crisis continued
ALTHOUGH the move has caused panic among weary parents mortified at the thought of carting their children to Nadra offices, the interior ministry’s recent directive to incorporate biometric features into Form B for 10-18-year-olds is not without its merits. While the immediate catalyst for this decision remains unclear, historical instances of identity document misuse underscore the necessity for such measures. In 2009, a sitting federal minister faced allegations of human trafficking, involving the manipulation
MY daughter, who is seven and a half, is my latest teacher. She is in grade two. She gets a fair bit of homework and she is kind enough that she lets me sit with her when she is doing her homework. I started sitting with her to see if she needed any help. But now I sit with her largely to learn from her. She likes some subjects more than others. It is