THIS country’s children make the news for unfortunate reasons. At the core of their plight is the state’s inability to recognise that child rights violations indicate administrative failure and a rejection of our young ones’ existence. The Anti-Kidnap for Ransom Unit of the Lahore Organised Crime Unit and the Azad Kashmir police recently rescued 29 kidnapped children and youth from Kotli district in AJK. Most of the victims, aged between 14 and 20 years,
Child Rights in Focus
ISLAMABAD: Globally nearly two million children suffering from severe wasting, also known as acute malnutrition, are at risk of death due to funding shortages for life-saving Ready-to-use-Therapeutic-Food (RUTF) to treat wasting, Unicef warned on 15th October. It stated that Pakistan is included in the 12 hardest-hit countries along with Mali, Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Sudan, Madagascar, Kenya, South Sudan, Congo and Uganda. This year, only 262,000 severely wasted children in Pakistan (one third of
Islamabad: Responding to reports of abuse and harassment against the CEO and commandant of a private cadet college in Hummak, the Child Protection Institute (CPI), in collaboration with the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration, conducted a raid and recovered 11 female students from the college hostel. The raid was led by CPI Director General Rabeea Hadi alongside Assistant Deputy Commissioner Mehreen Baloch. During the operation, the team inspected the hostel facilities and found the
ISLAMABAD: Another child has been paralysed by polio in Balochistan, marking the 33rd case of the disease in Pakistan this year, Polio Eradication officials said on 14-October-2024. The latest victim, a 35-month-old boy from Quetta, had not received any routine immunization doses. According to his parents, he received supplementary immunization activity (SIA) doses inconsistently. The child experienced the onset of paralysis on August 22, 2024, despite ongoing vaccination efforts aimed at curbing the wild
The body of a 10-year-old British-Pakistani girl whose death sparked an international manhunt was found with burn marks believed to have been made by an iron, a prosecutor told a London court on October 14. Sara Sharif was found dead in bed at her family home in Woking, southern England, on August 10, 2023. Sara’s stepmother Batool has refused to provide a dental impression for comparison with the bite marks, the prosecutor said. Other
29 kidnapped children rescued in Pakistan’s Kotli district highlight the urgent need for anti-trafficking measures. Child trafficking remains a pressing issue in Pakistan, with thousands of vulnerable children falling victim to this heinous crime every year. The recent recovery of 29 kidnapped children from the Kotli district underscores the urgent need for more effective measures to combat this scourge. The children, aged between 14 and 20, were primarily abducted from the vicinity of the
LAHORE: Protests erupted across the campuses of a group of colleges on October 14 over reports of the rape of a first-year student by a security guard. The incident had taken place on October 11 at the Gulberg campus, where a college bus driver had allegedly tricked the victim into the basement, where she was assaulted by a security guard, according to protesting students. The matter came to light when a lecturer inquired about
A judicial magistrate has recorded a confessional statement of a suspect in a case pertaining to the murder of a three-year-old girl. The child’s body was recovered from a street in Qabail Colony in Block 11 of Gulberg Town on October 9. The investigating officer produced the detained suspect, Naseer, before the judicial magistrate (Central) and moved an application to record his confessional statement under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). After
GUJRAT: As many as 15 “micro libraries” (book boxes) have been installed in at least three different public and family parks of Wazirabad to promote book reading among the people. According to an official of local administration, the boxes and books for these “micro libraries” have been provided by the local community to promote book reading. He says at five boxes containing books have been installed each in the City Park (Wazirabad), Municipal Park
CDPM a subsidiary of Peshawar University, announced the launch of its flagship project RESCUE PESHAWAR: The Centre for Disaster Preparedness and Management (CDPM), a subsidiary of Peshawar University, announced the launch of its flagship project “Resilient Education for School Children Understanding Emergencies (RESCUE)” on October 13, marking the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction. This initiative aligns with the theme of the international day and is crucial considering the risks of climate change in
WHILE basic education is a constitutional right of every child in Pakistan, millions of children and youth remain deprived of this fundamental means of living a quality life. The recently launched District Education Performance Index (DEPI) by the Ministry of Planning and Development represents a significant step towards comparing the state of education across 134 districts in Pakistan. The findings of the report reveal severe disparities in both access to and quality of education,
Karachi faces a diphtheria outbreak, with 28 child deaths in 2023, exposing gaps in vaccination and critical care. Pakistan’s healthcare system continues to show cracks as another preventable tragedy unfolds in Karachi. This year, 28 children have lost their lives to diphtheria – a bacterial disease that could have been easily avoided through proper vaccination. The Sindh Infectious Diseases Hospital has reported 166 cases of diphtheria so far in 2023, with more than 10