PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Secretary Nadeem Aslam Chaudhary formally launched the seven-day anti-polio campaign by administering anti-polio drops to children at the Police Services Hospital in Peshawar. Health Secretary Adil Shah, Peshawar Division Commissioner Riaz Mehsud, Deputy Commissioner Sarmad Salim Akram, and other officials were also present. Talking to the media, the CS said that unfortunately, 18 polio cases have been reported in the province in 2024. “Due to various reasons, many children miss out
Child Rights in Focus
Rawalpindi: The Association of Business, Professional, and Agricultural Women (ABP&AW) organised a dual-purpose event at ‘Bostan-e-Ilm,’ a charitable facility for out-of-school children. The activities-a ‘Bookshaw’ session for children and a health camp for mothers and babies-provided education, entertainment, and healthcare to underserved families, leaving a profound impact on the community. The ‘Bookshaw’ session, conducted by Tahmeena Malik with the support of Saba Alavi and Rukhsana Saleem, engaged children for two hours through storytime, nursery
QUETTA: The family of missing Musawar Kakar, along with political party leaders and members of the Balochistan Traders Association, have said that they consider the failure to recover Musawar Kakar, who was abducted on November 15, a failure of the relevant departments. The Balochistan chief minister had announced the formation of a Joint Investigation Team (JIT), but despite one and a half months passing, the boy has not been recovered. The Sit-in Action Committee
MUZAFFARGARH: A man who brutally murdered his three-year-old daughter by drowning her in a dirty drain has been sentenced to life imprisonment. Additional District and Sessions Judge Tahir Khalil handed down the sentence to Arshad Saleem Bhatti, an employee of the Jail Police. The murder case, registered at the Muzaffargarh City police station under case number 662/23, involved an extensive investigation by the police. District Police Officer Syed Hasnain Haider said the conviction was
LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has issued a set of guidelines to the Punjab government on the protection of women at shelter homes (Dar ul Aman), including the removal of all male staff, except essential officials, from such facilities. Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh passed the instructions on multiple identical petitions filed by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and others, in the wake of allegations of sexual exploitation of orphans, levelled by Afshan Latif,
Police arrested a man on 23-December-2024 for allegedly raping his minor stepsister. A woman named Saima, wife of Aslam, filed a complaint at the Defence police station stating that her seven-year-old daughter was subjected to rape by her stepson, Ali Aslam, on November 28. She told police that her daughter informed her that Ali had raped her in the past as well. Following her statement, police registered an FIR against the suspect and arrested
RAWALPINDI: Speakers at a workshop on 23rd December unanimously endorsed a resolution calling for the minimum age of marriage for girls to be linked to their national identity cards across the country. The resolution to leverage technology and national identity cards to prevent child marriages was supported by a diverse group of stakeholders, including health professionals, religious scholars, lawyers, academicians, media persons, and government officials from various departments, including education, health, population welfare, women
KARACHI: Health Minister Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho has said that the Sindh government plans to extend paediatric and neonatal intensive care services as part of its efforts to tackle the high infant mortality rate in the province. Speaking at a media briefing organised at the New Secretariat to highlight this year’s performance of the health department on December 23, she stated that a major concern for the provincial government in the health sector has
ISLAMABAD: The United Nations special rapporteurs have expressed concern over militant attacks on girls’ schools in Pakistan and urged the government to safeguard the inalienable right of women and girls to a safe and secure education. “We are alarmed by the ongoing terror attacks against girls’ schools by organisations who are against the education of women and girls. We note that all attacks on schools are abhorrent, but that targeted attacks against girls’ schools
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa health department has expressed concern over the Benazir Income Support Programme’s decision to hand over the Benazir Nashonuma Programme (BNP) to non-governmental organisations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and said it should be allowed to continue carrying out the anti-malnutrition initiative to support the health of poverty-stricken mothers and infant children. The programme is meant to address pregnancy-related issues and ensure healthy growth of children up to the age of two years,
The NCRC collaborated with Meta and the Digital Rights Foundation for the Youth Online Safety Roundtable held in Islamabad. Member KP, Miss Nadia Bibi, and the NCRC team participated in the discussion. The discussion aimed to foster youth online safety by addressing challenges specific to Pakistan’s context, with a focus on strengthening parent-teen communication and customizing Meta’s safety tools and policies to meet local needs. Additionally, emphasis was placed on NCRC’s potential role in
ISLAMABAD: The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH) has confirmed the detection of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in environmental samples collected from 10 already infected districts. According to a lab official, sewage samples collected from Gwadar, Sibi, Khuzdar, Dukki, Hub, Lasbela, Noshki, Bannu, D.I. Khan, and Lahore were found positive for WPV1. “When polio virus is found in the sewage sample of a district, it is