With the advent of summer, the dangerous bathing in the Lahore Canal has returned, thus exposing children to multiple health and life hazards.
Most of the under-aged children are seen dangling along the newly erected fence along the canal, frolicking about and crossing fast-track canal roads, especially on Sundays.
The contaminated canal water exposes the children to many skin, eye, nose and throat (ENT) as well as diseases of intestine besides the risk of being run over by fast moving vehicles. Scores of children frequent the Lahore Canal on Sundays as a pastime. Few of those are led by elders who ascribe their visit to power outages which tempt them to seek soothing relief along the canal bank but without any concern for their health and safety.
Most of the visitors are the under-aged children who throng the canal near Muslim Town bridge, Dharampura bridge, Mughalpura, Lal Pul, Aziz Pully, Harbanspura and Jallo. In the absence of public facilities for swimming in the city, the children and youth find it fun to spend the holiday along the canal in an effort to beat the soaring heat of the summer ignoring the hazards of their adventure.
Faizan, a class VIII student from N. D. Islamia High School, Ichhra, told APP that he had come to the canal to enjoy along with three other friends. However, his parents were unaware of his visit to the canal. He expressed complete ignorance of the health hazards of bathing in the canal water, innocently maintaining “running water is free of any contamination”.
The painful aspect is the fact that both the City District Government Lahore (CDGL) and the Punjab Government have not paid any heed to the safety of children and to provide ample opportunities to the youth in the form of public swimming pools.
The onus is on the government to start public awareness campaign along the canal besides the educational institutions of the city to apprise the public of dangers of the contaminated canal water.
