Daily Times

On 24 January 2024, the National Commission on the Rights of Child (NCRC) successfully launched the policy brief on child trafficking in Pakistan in a ceremony held at Marriott Hotel Islamabad, in which state-of-the-art legislative / policy framework on the issue of child trafficking in Pakistan including recommendations for its effective improvement / implementation were presented. The chief guest of the ceremony was Ms Mushaal Hussein Mullick, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Human Rights and Women Empowerment and dignitaries from govt. ministries / departments, UN agencies, civil society and academia graced the event. I am the original author of this policy brief and drafted it as a Program Policy Advisor of NCRC during its last term, but the name of the author in the policy brief was written as Ms. Aleena Khan, Legal Advisor NCRC which is factually incorrect. The credit for my research and hard work was given to someone else who was not the original contributor/author of this policy brief.

During the last six months of NCRC’s first tenure, I have been honoured to work as a program policy advisor and a focal person for NCRC’s business with the parliament, and federal / provincial government ministries / divisions / wings / departments. My responsibilities / duties inter alia were to assist the NCRC and Government of Pakistan in fulfilment of child rights through formulation/enactment/review of policies/laws, submit recommendations for their effective improvement / implementation and draft the policy briefs on human/child rights related issues. My job at NCRC was financed by the Ministry of Commerce under an EDF grant to NCRC and I was under an obligation to draft the policy briefs on child rights protection themes on a quarterly basis and to review 10-15 child-related legislative/institutional frameworks etc.

Policy Brief on child trafficking in Pakistan is the official publication and intellectual property of NCRC and they can use it as they wish.

During my job at NCRC, the Commission assigned me two policy briefs for drafting. The first one was on the ‘Juvenile Justice System of Pakistan’, which was drafted during the period of first three months of my job and the second one was on ‘Child Trafficking in Pakistan’, which was drafted in the next and last three months of my job. Under the EDF grant, NCRC was bound to submit quarterly progress reports to the Ministry of Commerce/EDF Secretariat about the work done under the grant. In these reports, NCRC has officially acknowledged my outstanding progress as a policy advisor by sharing the drafts of both of my policy briefs and laws/policies reviewed to ensure that adequate work had been done under the EDF grant.

During the preparation of my policy brief on child trafficking in Pakistan, I officially approached the UNICEF, UNODC, UNHCR, ILO, IOM, FIA, all provincial home departments and various other national and international organizations to gather the qualitative / quantitative data related to this policy brief. When all the information was gathered from all sources and incorporated in the draft, the final draft was submitted to the chairperson, members and all the consultants of NCRC and their input was incorporated in the draft, then in February 2023, a consultation was held on this policy brief at NCRC, in which participants from government departments/ministries, UN agencies, judiciary, civil society and INGOs were invited. A very focused input was received on this policy brief in the consultation, which was again incorporated in the draft to make it more refined and the final draft was prepared for publication for NCRC.

On 28 February 2023, the first term of the Commission expired and on 1st March 2023, the Commission became dormant, so unfortunately my policy brief on child trafficking in Pakistan couldn’t be published officially. The NCRC remained dormant till the appointment of new chairperson/members on 13 April 2023. The policy brief on child trafficking was the first ever official policy brief of the new chairperson/members since assuming the charge of the office. It was drafted by me in the last term under the supervision of that time NCRC’s chairperson Afshan Tahseen and members.

In the launching ceremony of the policy brief, no official person from the previous Commission term was formally invited by the incumbent Commission. I attended the ceremony after reading about it on social media / online. During the launching ceremony, I told NCRC’s chairperson / members and other participants that I am the actual author of this policy brief and publishing it by removing my name from the author list is a violation of intellectual property rights / copyrights laws. Upon realization of their malafide, they had to announce on the stage two times that this policy brief was drafted in the previous term and we acknowledged the efforts / contributions of the previous Commission in this policy brief but still didn’t announce my name as an actual author of this policy brief.

Policy Brief on child trafficking was published by the incumbent Commission with the financial support of UNICEF, whereas, it was drafted by me under the EDF grant by the Ministry of Commerce. Through the EDF grant by the Ministry of Commerce to NCRC, I was hired as a program policy advisor to draft this policy brief which was to be published under the EDF grant. Neither EDF grant, Ministry of Commerce, previous Commission nor I were acknowledged in the publication of this policy brief. Policy Brief on child trafficking in Pakistan is the official publication and intellectual property of NCRC and they can use it as they wish, but depriving the original author of his due credit by not mentioning his name in the author list, not mentioning EDF, Ministry of Commerce and previous Commission’s chairperson/members is a discriminatory and malafide practice on part of incumbent Commission. This discrimination / malafide can only be rectified by the incumbent Commission by tendering a written apology to the previous Commission / original author of this policy brief. Moreover, it should be reprinted by mentioning my name as an original author of this policy brief, acknowledging the EDF/Ministry of Commerce and oversight of former NCRC’s chairperson/members in it.

The writer is an Advocate (High Court) & Human Rights Activist. He can be reached at adv.wajahat.ali@gmail.com and tweets @Adv_WajahatAli