Member National Commission for Child Rights, Pakistan Rubina Feroz Bhatti along with Provincial Minister for Human Rights and Minority Affairs Ejaz Alam Augustine held an important meeting with representatives of civil society, media, lawyers and representatives of various schools of thought in New Minister Block’s office on Saturday.
Director Human Rights Muhammad Yousuf, Columnist Zameer Afaq, Kamran Chaudhry from UCA News, Nabila Feroze from Nia Daur, Chairman International Legal Affairs Advocate Osama Malik, Chairman Child Protection Committee Lahore Bar Waheed Ahmed Chaudhry, Advocate High Court Sumaira Shafiq, Advocate Miqdad Mehdi, Child Labor Front Mehr Safdar Ali, Nayab Ali spoke on behalf of transgender while Iftikhar Mubarak from Search for Justice, Shahid Rehmat from Youth Development Foundation, Shahnawaz from SPO and Dr. Bela from Education and Awareness Institute attended the important session. A detailed discussion was held in the session regarding the children of Punjab province.
Various suggestions were put forward by the participants regarding the rights of the children, including the inclusion of the Child Labor Act in the Children’s Act, improvement in the Workers’ Act, Establishment of helpline for access of common man, increase in number of labor inspectors across the Punjab, further improvement in coordination at district level, making birth registration mandatory, making smart cards in NADRA, establish observation rooms for children in police stations and police reforms regarding children.
Member NCRC Rubina Feroz Bhatti assured the participants that all the suggestions would be put in the agenda of the Commission as common agenda to secure the future of our children.
She said that Pakistan was among the countries which signed and ratified the CRC for implementing it in accordance with Pakistan’s law and Islamic ideology. The CRC provides a universal standard on the rights of children the world over.
Pakistan being a signatory is under obligation to develop a child protection system to ensure optimum child development and protection. She further said that the PTI’s government wanted to take all the stakeholders into confidence and move forward to secure children.
Various working groups will be formed with the cooperation of all stakeholders so that everyone responsibly ensured the protection of children’s rights in their own institutions, she concluded. Provincial Minister for Human Rights Ejaz Alam Augustine said that unfortunately in the past everyone talked about children’s rights but it was not given much importance while setting up task force in every district would be an important milestone. He said that I am going to visit Bahawalpur and Multan in connection with the Moham Ram and Zain cases to ensure the protection of children’s rights. He said that co-operation of all concerned departments was needed for protection of human rights and prevention of human rights violations while Punjab government was taking all possible steps to ensure protection of children’s rights across the Punjab with the elimination of child labor. This is need of hour to effectively build pressure on the relevant departments by involving children, civil society, media and other relevant stakeholders for improving the situation of children and fulfilling Pakistan’s national and international obligations, he concluded.
