KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister’s Adviser on Information Sharmila Farooqui on Wednesday reiterated that the government is commitment towards safeguarding the rights of the children and stressed the need for public-private partnership ventures to achieve this task.
“The civil society, NGOs, volunteers, philanthropists, international development partners, media, corporate sector and particularly the children themselves should come forward and play their role to bring an end to violence against children,” she said while addressing at a function organised by the AGHS Child Rights Unit of Pakistan at the press club.
“The task to protect children requires partnership between public and private agencies.”
She said that there the National Plan of Action for Children focusing on child education, health and protection needs to be properly implemented upon.
“Pakistan has the distinction of being one of the six-initiator countries of the World Summit for Children 1990,” she said, adding that as a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Pakistan always remained in forefront to advocate the child rights agenda and played a key role at the regional and international levels to protect the rights of the child.
Highlighting statistics, the adviser said that there are eight million children suffering from malnutrition and 3.5 million are forced to work in the country.
“About 23 million children in Pakistan have never been to school and the youth literacy rate is only 58 percent, which is among the lowest in the world.”
She said that sexual abuse is another problem and over 10,000 children below the age of 15 are living on the streets and footpaths of Karachi alone. “There are more than 4,500 juvenile prisoners in Pakistani jails.” She pointed out that impoverished parents have to sell their children for around 3,000 to 7,000.
Farooqui said that the children, who were affected by the recent floods, need urgent attention.
“We must step up efforts to reconstruct homes, schools and health care centres for these children.”
She said that the AGHS Child Rights Unit’s operations should be extended to the interior parts of Sindh.
“Children in villages need to be provided juvenile justice and those without family support should be provided alternative care.”
