A tragic incident occurred in Government Colony, Depalpur a couple days ago. Six year old Zumar went to a park like countless children do every evening to play, run and climb. He and his friends were trying to climb a monkey bar that had become dilapidated over time and merely needed a push to collapse. The monkey bar broke, fell on his neck and inflicting fatal injuries ended the life of a child who had simply gone to play in a park. Little did Zumar know that a seemingly harmless recreational actwould take his life.
Parks are often used as decorative municipal amenities to attract property buyers, but they serve a more important purpose for children. For them it is a place for physical activity, for forming new bonds and friendships. It is a place where their creativity and imagination find new dimensions. Park is a place where their character develops.
It is a place where they develop emotionally, learning cooperation and conflict resolution.
Yet, while the importance of parks to childhood is undeniable, the condition of many public parks tells a different story. Rusting monkey bars, broken swings, damaged slides, exposed wires, uneven ground, and litter marring several parks have transformed places intended for recreation into potential sites of injury and illness. Zumar’s death, therefore, raises a question that extends far beyond one park in Depalpur. What happens when spaces intended for recreation become unsafe for children?
This problem is not confined to one locality. Major cities and urban centres of Pakistan are facing the same issues. Not only are the parks deteriorating, but their number is also on a decline. The space reserved for parks and playgrounds is eventually used for commercial purposes.
The space that was originally meant to be a playground becomes a commercial market or additional residential buildings. The urban recreational spaces shrink as a result of the expanding population. The parks that are not sacrificed at the altar of commercial needs rarely receive maintenance and, hence, are not safe for children. Citizens have time and again urged the relevant authorities to take notice of the situation and prioritize parks maintenance, but these appeals have gone unheeded.
Yet the problem takes a different, and in many cases an acute, shape in rural areas. While an urban child may have a poorly maintained park, the child in rural settings has no designated recreational space at all. For many rural children, an open plot, a field or roadside becomes the playground. These sites may provide a space to play and run, but they are not safe and lack the equipment and supervision that a purpose built facility can provide.
This creates an important disparity in childhood itself. A child living in an urban neighborhood may at least have access to a park, even if its swings are broken or the equipment is poorly maintained. A child in a rural community may not have a park at all. Hence the difference is not just between a good park and a bad park, for some children it is even about the availability of the park. The question therefore is not simply if Pakistan has enough parks. It is whether every child, regardless of where he or she is born, has access to safe public space.
This is why the condition of public parks and playgrounds should not be dismissed as minor concern. Roads, hospitals and schools are rightly regarded as essential public infrastructure because of the services they provide. Safe recreational places also deserve similar recognition. If the state plans where its children will study and receive medical treatment, it should also plan where they will play.
The tragedy of Zumar’s death brings this issue into sharper focus. He did not enter the park seeking an extraordinary experience. He went there to do something entirely ordinary, to play with his friends. The fact that an ordinary act of childhood could end in such an extraordinary tragedy should force us to reconsider what we expect from the spaces built for our children. A playground should challenge a child’s imagination, not his or her safety.
—The writer is a contributing
columnist, based in Okara, Punjab
