ISLAMABAD: The country has reported its third wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) case of 2025, with the latest victim being a 54-month-old girl from Ratodhero tehsil in Larkana district. The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health (NIH) confirmed the case on Saturday. This is the second polio case from Sindh this year, while the first was reported from Dera Ismail Khan (DI Khan), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The child, belonging
Child Rights in Focus
LAHORE: The Punjab government plans to increase the number of Special Sexual Offences Investigation Units (SSOIUs) across the province to investigate scheduled offences under the Anti-Rape (Investigation & Trial) Act of 2021 and offer better services to women in distress. In this regards, around 150 more SSOIUs would be added Punjab-wide to probe the scheduled offences. Since a large number of cases were being reported and registered with little investigation and relief for the
Pakistan’s prison system is at a breaking point, with over 102,000 inmates crammed into overcrowded, under-resourced facilities. Prison conditions in Pakistan fall significantly short of international standards, with inmates facing numerous systemic challenges, including severe overcrowding, unhygienic living conditions, insufficient access to clean water, nutritious food and healthcare, exploitative labour practices, limited contact with family and legal counsel, and a lack of effective complaint mechanisms. Furthermore, prisons fail to provide adequate rehabilitative, educational, vocational or
The responsibility for cultivating meaningful education lies with school administrations and teachers. Education is a journey for life, focusing on the practical ways and means of knowledge. The primary purpose of establishing educational institutions is to enlighten students, enabling them to become better citizens capable of addressing life’s complexities. However, education often remains underexplored, not due to its absence but because of the limitations in our learning systems and a lack of curiosity to
The provincial education minister, Syed Sardar Ali Shah, on 21-February-2025 ordered taking action against permanently absent teachers (around 5,000) and dismissing them if they fail to report back. Officials said an annual review meeting, chaired by Sindh Minister for Education and Mines & Minerals development Syed Sardar Ali Shah, resulted in important decisions, including extending the teacher recruitment process until June 30, addressing salary and database issues for newly recruited teachers, dismissing permanently absent
Announces scholarships, startup loans, and financial reforms at UET convocation PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur has announced plans to make education completely free for female students in the province, emphasizing that only an educated mother can create an educated and civilized society. He attended a convocation of the University of Engineering and Technology (UET) Peshawar on February 21 as Chancellor and awarded degrees and gold medals to graduates. A total of
SHANGLA: The police arrested an accused and lodged the first information report (FIR) after an objectionable video went viral in WhatsApp groups in which an 11-year-old boy was being raped. Police told Dawn on February 20 that one of the two accused had been arrested and efforts were underway to arrest the other. They said the incident occurred in the Naredary area of Alpuri, and police came to know after a video of the heinous
MUZAFFARABAD: A child rights caucus would soon be formed in the Legislative Assembly of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) to strengthen parliamentary engagement in child protection laws, improve access to education, and combat child labour and exploitation. This assurance was given by Legislative Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Latif Akbar, who is currently serving as AJK’s acting president, to a delegation of the National Assembly’s Parliamentary Caucus on Child Rights (PCCR), which called on him at
Police say she intended to extort Rs1.5m from her husband RAWALPINDI: Police have arrested a woman who falsely claimed her nine-month-old child had been kidnapped for a ransom of Rs1.5 million in an attempt to deceive her husband. According to police officials, an emergency call was made to the police from a woman named Soofia, a resident of Hazara Colony, claiming that her nine-month-old child had been kidnapped for a ransom of Rs1.5 million.
AFTER the Millennium Development Goals failed to yield satisfactory results, the world needed a more holistic approach that could provide solutions sustainable in nature and that would have a global impact. Thereafter, the Sustainable Development Goals 2030, also called the ‘Global Goals’ and the ‘2030 Agenda’, were introduced from the United Nations platform to address challenges like poverty, hunger, water scarcity, sustainable energy, and education. The SDGs set 169 targets and laid out guidelines
KHAR: The police claimed to have arrested the alleged rapist and killer of a five-year old girl in Maina area of Wara Mamond tehsil in Bajaur tribal district on 20-February-2025. Addressing a press conference, DPO Waqar Rafiq said that the police had succeeded in arresting the suspected rapist and murderer within 12 hours as the brutal murder of the girl child in Maina area of Wara Mamond tehsil had sparked widespread grief and outrage
The Sindh health department in collaboration with its partners is launching a targeted polio vaccination campaign whose first phase in 27 high-risk union committees of Karachi will start on February 22, to strengthen children’s immunity and curb the transmission of the poliovirus. This first phase of the campaign aims to vaccinate 562,163 children under the age of five with oral polio vaccine (OPV) and administer fractional inactivated polio vaccine (fIPV) to 521,953 children aged