Every school needs a psychologist for student counselling

Children with different levels of creativity need proper counselling, says activist Zia Ahmed

There is no focus on proper counselling of students in Pakistan and this result in a lack of proper handling of psychological and behavioural issues in students. The government should ensure that every school in the country must have at least one psychologist in order to promote guidance and counselling of students.

These thoughts were shared by noted child rights activist and human rights lawyer Zia Ahmed Awan speaking at a moot about child rights hosted by DevCon at a local hotel previous evening.

He said there is hardly any investment in the sector of social justice and the government and non-government stakeholders should join hands to increase spending on social sector so as to ensure easy access

He said there is hardly any investment in the sector of social justice and the government and non-government stakeholders should join hands to increase spending on social sector so as to ensure easy access to social justice to downtrodden and marginalised people.

He said there are several laws but the majority of them lack implementation. He said there is a lack of sensitisation about the children rights in the institutions directly related to children, especially schools, hospitals, juvenile courts and concerned government agencies and departments.

He said there are different mechanisms in different provinces regarding the children-related issues and there is a need to devise a comprehensive mechanism that could be applied to the centre and all provinces.

He said policing mechanisms regarding the probing of child-related cases are different in different provinces that should also be streamlined.

He shared a recent success story of his children helpline ‘Madadgaar’ regarding recovery of two minor girls, real sisters, who were kidnapped from Karachi and trafficked to Balochistan.

He said in Sindh, there is a comprehensive child protection law (Sindh Children Act) that is adopted from the Bombay Children Act. He regretted that this comprehensive law is yet to be fully implemented. He also demanded to work on the rights of disabled people, who are badly neglected presently.

Zia Awan, who is also the president of Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), stressed the need of giving focus to the mental health of children.

He suggested that every government or private school should have at least one psychologist for counselling of children facing stress and mental health problems. He said there are many children who have different levels of creativity and they need proper counselling.

He said the children should not be discriminated on the basis of their colour, creed, language and ethnicity.