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  The State of Pakistan's Children 2003 is the seventh edition of SPARC's annual reports that documents and analyzes the situation of children during the past year, and measures their everyday conditions in the country, and to an extent in Afghanistan, against international commitments and standards.
The SPARC report assesses the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child's implications and applications to children’s lives, monitors the extent to which legislation, policy and practice comply with its principles and standards and, within this broad framework, highlights issues specific to the country. The eight chapters in the 2003 Report, compiled from the media, other reports and surveys and first hand information, deal with child rights, poverty, child labor, violence, education, health, children in Afghanistan and violence against children.
The chapter on Child Rights gives details of Pakistan’s second periodic report covering its implementation of the UNCRC, the Concluding Observations and recommendations by the Committee on the Rights of the Child that is based in Geneva. SPARC became Pakistan's first NGO to present an alternative report to the Committee and salient features of the Report are covered.
The chapter on Child Labor reviews the situation of child labor in Pakistan with a look at the Time Bound Program in Pakistan, which was jointly launched by the ILO, Ministry of Labor in November 2003 after the Government of Pakistan ratified the Convention 182 effective October 2001 and requested technical assistance from ILO/ IPEC in fulfilling its international commitment under the Convention. This program is to continue for four years (2003-07), and is partly supported by the US Department of Labor.
In 2003, the ILO released a report titled Investing in Every Child: An Economic Study of the Costs and Benefits of Eliminating Child Labor. A hypothetical program for the elimination of child labor, which would begin in 2000 and end by 2020, was implemented as it would in developing and transitional countries.
The chapter on Juvenile Justice deals with the situation of juvenile criminals in Pakistan. More than three years have passed since the promulgation of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance on July 1, 2000, but the situation remains just as bleak. The law can be regarded as comprehensive in relation to arrest and court procedures, but it has unfortunately failed to ensure justice to children coming into conflict with the law due to poor implementation and a lack of awareness amongst the concerned officials. Although the government introduced JJSO to protect and promote the rights of all under-18 children in Pakistan who come into conflict with the law, children living in PATA, FATA, FANA and Azad Jammu and Kashmir are denied the relief and protection offered by the JJSO as the law does not extend to these areas. Owing to poor implementation of the JJSO, children in jails are facing stress, psychological, mental and physical ailments and even deaths due to prolonged stay behind bars and lack of adequate health and other facilities.
The chapter on Education gives an analysis of the Governments Policy and Initiatives, Targets and Progress and a thorough overview of the international initiatives for education in Pakistan’s context. Some efforts have no doubt been made in this field but they have been rather slow and insufficient.
The chapter on Health focuses on the physical conditions of children in Pakistan and the policies and strategies, which include the Poverty Reduction Paper. It portrays that a realistic approach is needed to deal with locally specific health threats and adequate financial and human resources, and infrastructure should be made available for them. The implementation of laws has to be stronger.
The report on Violence Against Children in 2003 depicts a dismal picture. Children in Pakistan experience the worst forms of abuse and exploitation at the hands of adults and the State. Corporal Punishment is used widely at homes and schools as means to discipline a child. This chapter focuses on the negative impacts of corporal punishment, the government’s initiatives in this case, children in conflict situations while highlighting the plight of child soldiers, landmines and child refugees. It also focuses in detail on the issues of child abuse, child sexual abuse, child marriages and street children in Pakistan and their consequences. Also, trafficking is in Pakistan a high profit trade carried out by a large number of networks spread throughout the country. The National Commission for Child Welfare and Development is still in the process of formulating a National Plan of Action (NPA) for protecting the rights of the child in line with the guidelines of the UN CRC. The NCCWD in 2003 introduced a code of conduct for media reporting on issues relating to children to safeguard the dignity and privacy of children involved in different cases and at risk of being exploited through inappropriate exposure.
The report on Poverty highlights the impacts of poverty on children and how it forces them into child labor and makes them miss education, suffer from poor health, and make them vulnerable to violence. It focuses on the Government initiatives, which include Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) that was completed in year 2003, the 10- year Perspective plan 2001-11, prepared by the Planning Commission, Millennium Development Goals 1990-2015 and Introduction to Social Safety nets. Bilateral and multilateral donors have urged the Government to increase substantially its budget allocations for social sectors and to improve its weak implementation. From the report it can be seen that there are good prospects for Pakistan to reverse the poor economic and social performance witnessed for more than a decade. But only if it uses the fiscal space created by not wasting the resources on unproductive expenditures and spending on urgent priority areas of education, health and in generating employment.
The final chapter deals with the state of Children in Afghanistan. The situation is still generally poor, despite the efforts of local and international organizations to ensure their welfare. The infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the world, and one-fourth of children born die before reaching age five. As many as 45% of Afghans today are children under 14 years old. There lies hope in the fact that there is now greater awareness of child rights in Afghanistan, and the government are making important efforts to improve the situation.
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KARACHI, Oct 27: Parents of 18-year-old Tasleem Solangi, who was killed in an extremely inhumane manner allegedly by some elders of her tribe, have appealed to President and Sindh Chief Minister to provide them protection as “killers are still at large and have not been arrested because of their connections with police”.
