LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has been requested to strike down the law criminalising abortion to the extent of rape victims. `The pro-choice is a reality, which is why it is important that women should have access to medical services without any preconceived notions and biases,` says a public interest petition filed by Advocate Aasya Ismail. The lawyer pleads that pro-choice, the freedom to choose abortion, is a fundamental right. The lawyer argues that
Child Rights in Focus
KHYBER: Khyber tribal district has reported no polio case since 2019 and largely controlled vaccination refusals due to community mobilisation campaigns and involvement of local volunteers for immunisation, said speakers at an event on 24 Feb 2024. Health officials called the Alliance Building and Sensitisation Session with elected representatives and influencers from Landi Kotal tehsil ahead of the upcoming National Immunisation Day campaign.The organisers said the event was called to `garner support for polio
A two-year-old girl was shot dead by armed bike snatchers in a Korangi area, police said on 24 Feb 2024. Korangi SHO Amin Solangi said that a man, identified as Hassan, reached home from work on his new motorcycle on 23 Feb 2024 night. When he reached home, three armed men riding a motorbike, who were ostensibly chasing him, emerged there, held him at gunpoint and demanded his two-wheelers. The SHO said that as
An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Faisalabad handed down life term and Rs220m fine to a woman fake faith healer who had set a girl on fire to exorcise ‘jinns’ from her in 2022. According to the prosecution, the victim girl, Sonia, was reportedly mentally ill and her parents called a woman faith healer, Shamim Bibi, from Jhang who burnt her different body parts of the girl with coal fire. Bibi told the victim’s parents
A minor girl employed as a domestic help had allegedly been tortured by her employer and his two sisters to death in Nemat Colony No 2 locality of Faisalabad. According to the first information report (FIR) registered under sections 302 and 34 of the the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), complainant Ghulam Murtaza of Chak 229-RB, Makkuana, said his daughter Ayesha Bibi, 11 years old, was employed as a domestic help in the house of
Residents of Bannu district, including political and social activists, have asked the provincial government to upgrade the school for children with disability to high level. Talking to reporters on 23rd Feb 2024, they said the population of differently-abled children was in the thousands but they lacked educational and other facilities. They said the social welfare department had set up the school for children from Bannu, Lukki Marwat and North Waziristan districts, and keeping in
THIS is with reference to the report `Man kills wife, three kids before committing suicide` (Jan 23). According to a survey, between 15 and 35 individuals take their own lives in Pakistan every day. Shockingly, Pakistan is ranked 72nd globally, with a suicide mortality rate of 9.8 per 100,000 population. What is even more concerning is the year-on-year increase in the suicide mortality rate. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there were 7.3
KARACHI: Police on 23rd Feb 2024 registered a murder case and launched a probe after an autopsy found that a teenage girl, whose body was found in her Korangi home a day before, was actually raped and murdered. The body of the teenager was found hanging from the ceiling of her home and initially it was said that she had died by suicide. However, police raised doubts that the roof of the room was
The World Day of Social Justice is celebrated every year on February 20. The International Labour Organization (ILO) unanimously adopted the ILO Declaration on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization on June 10, 2008 and termed equal opportunities for development and seeking justice as important pillars for the prosperity of the nation. Climate change is a global challenge that is creating problems of social justice in multiple ways. There are socioeconomic and geographical structural
KARACHI: Highlighting Pakistan`s polio-related challenges, experts at a session held on 22nd February 2024 identified vaccine hesitancy as a significant barrier to the immunisation coverage, particularly in Karachi, a city with the highest refusal rate for polio vaccination in the country. The problem, it was pointed out, had more to do with people`s attitudes than literacy levels. The experts were speaking at an orientation session organised byEmergency Operations Centre for Sindh (EoC) for journalists
KARACHl: A sessions court has sentenced a man to 10-year rigorous imprisonment on charges of raping an underage girl at an orphanage. Additional District and Sessions Judge (East) Ilyas Memon found accused Mehdi Hassan, a former employee of the orphanage, guilty of raping the teenage girl at a private shelter home in May 2021 within the jurisdiction of the Jamshed Quarters police station. The court imposed a fine of Rs100,000 on the convict and
The Lahore High Court (LHC) has recently ruled that the Punjab government must establish rules under the Punjab Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2014, to ensure the compliance with this law at private schools. The ruling comes after a private school filed a petition against the denial of a registration certificate by the District Registration Authority in Sahiwal. It also sheds light on the persistent challenges facing the education sector in Pakistan, including issues