



Sindh has the highest number of malnourished children in the country — 40 per cent of the province's children are malnourished.





The Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) launched its report, titled 'The State of Pakistan's Children 2014', on Wednesday, sharing statistics about child rights in the country.A blood-stained photograph from the Peshawar school attack in December is on the report's cover. Sparc national manager Kashif Bajeer explained that it was dedicated to the schoolchildren in the attack. He added that the main focus of the report was on juvenile prisoners and bonded labour.While child labour has decreased across the globe, the number of child workers has increased in Pakistan, which lies third on the list of countries when it comes to this menace.Sparc representatives pointed out that no survey has been conducted to find out the number of child labourers in the country in the last 19 years. However, according to a 2012 estimate by the International Labour Organisation, there were around 12.5 million such workers.The Sparc report states that while Pakistan's crime ratio has increased, the number of children imprisoned in jails had come down. In 2014, there were 1,456 juvenile prisoners in jails across the country, out of which 291 were in Sindh."There is poor implementation of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance and the detention centres lack rehabilitation facilities," asserted Zahid Thebo, the Sparc provincial manager. "The overriding effects of the anti-terrorism legislation are now a major problem, with executions taking place as well."In 2014, 3.3 million girls and 6.1 million boys between the age of five and 16 years were out of school in Sindh. The net enrolment rate in government schools across the province stands at 52 per cent for primary schools, 19 per cent for middle schools and a mere 12 per cent for high school.While the education budget for Sindh was raised to Rs145 billion in 2014 from Rs135 billion in 2013, the Rs10 billion increase has yet to bring any significant changes, the Sparc report added.HealthcareNot only does Sindh have the highest number of undernourished children, 73 per cent of its children are also anaemic and only 70 per cent of children under the age of a year are immunised for measles.The report focused on the famine in Tharparkar as well, pointing out that 546 children had died in the drought-hit district so far. Meanwhile, around 29 cases of polio were reported from Sindh last year, while the country saw an overall increase in polio cases.The report reveals that from 2000 to 2013, 69,604 cases of violence against children were reported in the country, including murder, rape, sodomy, torture, kidnapping and forced marriages. While Punjab has the highest rate of child violence, Sindh emerged second with 23,166 cases of crime committed against children.Meanwhile, from January 2014 to June 2014, around 519 cases of sexual abuse against children were reported in Sindh. The provincial government also registered 45 cases of abduction of children under the age of 10 years.In terms of legislation related to children, 2014 showed some positive developments. The Sindh government passed the Sindh Child Marriage Restraint Act, which raises the minimum age of marriage to 18 years for girls and punishes those who contract child marriages.The speakers expressed concern that there was no legislation about the trafficking of children in the country, adding that children could easily be kidnapped and taken to other cities, where they were used as beggars and sex workers.Published in The Express Tribune, April 30, 2015.