A child’s journey to school should never be a gamble. Yet in Pakistan, thousands of students travel every day in overcrowded vans, ageing Suzuki vehicles and rickshaws that are often poorly maintained and sometimes fitted with dangerously installed LPG cylinders. That this has been allowed to become routine is itself a serious failure of regulation. The Lahore Traffic Police’s decision to crack down on overloading and the use of LPG cylinders in school transport
Child Rights in Focus
TOBA TEK SINGH: A nine-year-old girl was allegedly kidnapped and later found dead at Chak Allyanwala in Nankana Sahib district. According to Warburton police, the body of Riffat Fatima was recovered from a pit near her house. The girl’s father, Shahbazul Hassan, stated in his first information report registered under Sections 302 and 363 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) that he woke up around 3 am on Monday and found his daughter missing
TOBA TEK SINGH: Tirkhani police, Faisalabad, arrested five people, including three women, for their alleged involvement in the sale and purchase of a newborn girl. Complainant ASI Zahid Bashir stated in his FIR, registered under Section 328 of the PPC and the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act 2018, that he had learnt about the disappearance of a 15-day-0ld girl from Chak 50-GB. During the investigation, police allegedly found that the baby’s mother, Sadia
LAHORE: Women from different walks of life on Monday demanded that the government take urgent and effective measures against the rising incidence of crimes committed against women and children, besides voicing concerns over the lack of access to education and healthcare and the ‘discriminatory treatment’ meted out to people of south Punjab. Addressing a press conference here on Monday, PPP Lahore Secretary General Dr Ayesha Shaukat said that safety providers in police stations were
KARACHI: Pakistan’s economic debate rarely strays far from familiar territory. Inflation, public debt, exports, taxation and the energy crisis dominate political speeches and newspaper headlines alike. These are undoubtedly pressing concerns for a country grappling with recurring fiscal instability. Yet beneath these visible economic challenges lies another crisis – less visible but arguably more consequential – that receives only episodic attention. Nearly four in every ten Pakistani children are chronically malnourished. This is not
LOWER DIR: The increasing number of stray dogs in different parts of Lower Dir has emerged as a serious public safety and health concern, with residents urging authorities to introduce a comprehensive strategy to address the issue. Residents told Dawn on Sunday that packs of stray dogs were commonly seen near garbage dumps, hotels, markets and residential areas in Samar Bagh, Chakdara, Talash, Timergara, Maidan and other localities. The situation has become particularly worrying
TOBA TEK SINGH: The Faisalabad FIA has foiled an attempt to traffic a minor girl to Saudi Arabia on August 16 through a fake marriage certificate. An FIA official said that during an immigration check at the Faisalabad International Airport, a minor passenger was stopped and profiled. During the examination of her documents, her age was found to be 13 years, while her marriage certificate was found to be fake. He said the initial
KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has issued notices to the secretary of culture department and the Sindh Board of Film Censors on a petition filed against blocking the screening of a film titled Ghost School in the province. A two-judge constitutional bench of the SHC comprising Justice Adnan-ul-Karim Memon and Justice Muhammad Jaffer Raza also put the advocate general of Sindh on notice for Aug 21. Citing the province of Sindh through secretary of culture, tourism, antiquities &
LOWER DIR: The district education officer on August 15 recommended the temporary closure for one week of 18 girls’ schools in the border areas of Upper Dir amid the prevailing security situation along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. According to an official letter issued by the district education officer, Upper Dir, to the deputy commissioner, serious concerns have been raised about the safety of students and teaching staff amid the prevailing uncertainty in the district’s border
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on August 15 launched a data-driven initiative to identify out-of-school children across the province and to bring them back into the education system. A memorandum of understanding in this respect was signed by the elementary and secondary education, local government, elections and rural development, health and social welfare departments. Chief Minister Sohail Afridi was also present during the MoU signing ceremony, according to an official statement from the CM Secretariat.
TAXILA: Punjab Education Minister Rana Sikandar Hayat has announced a major package of educational initiatives for Attock, including the upgradation of information technology (IT) laboratories in 110 schools at cost of Rs300 million, two new university campuses, five Pink buses for girls’ colleges and an international study tour to Turkiye for students. He was addressing as a chief guest in a ceremony organised in honour of position-holder students in the matriculation examination in Attock
PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on August 14 formally launched Global Virtual School (GVS), the first such initiative in the public sector by any government in the country, to provide virtual artificial intelligence education, linking up hundreds of schools across the length and breadth of the province. “The GVS will help overcome challenges in a province beset by natural and man-made disasters,” elementary and secondary education secretary Mohammad Khalid Khan told participants of the