ISLAMABAD: The National Commission on the Rights of the Child Act has been passed but worryingly the commission has still not been established to prevent children from abuse and exploitation. This was stated by Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Senator Farhatullah Babar at the seminar organised by Child Protection Commissioner of the Wafaqi Mohtasib in Islamabad on Friday. The seminar was attended byp, chairperson National Commission on the Status of Women, representatives of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) and civil society organisations. Former law minister SM Zafar also participated through a video link. Farhatullah Babar said that children are also victims of kidnapping and sexual abuse, early marriage, exploitative domestic labour, unattended orphans, in jails without fault, some even on death row, statelessness as in case of Afghan refugees, caught in internal displacement and armed conflict and neglected in indigenous communities like Kalash. There was however no credible data base on the victims of various types of abuses and the steps taken to bring the perpetrators to justice which was critical to plan for ending child abuse, he said. He called for compiling complete data on child abuse in consultation will all stakeholders for planning to protect the children. During the universal periodic review of human rights, Pakistan had promised the UN to prepare the core document but the pledge had not been kept. Acknowledging some positive measures, he said that criminalising child pornography, raising age limit for criminal liability were commendable but regretted that the bills passed by the Senate on unattended orphans and domestic service had not been passed by the National Assembly. He said that the UN committee’s recommendations about preventing the use of children in armed conflicts, madressah reforms and prevention of recruitment of students by armed groups and signing the protocols at the Convention on the Rights of the Child also remained un-implemented. Farhatullah Babar proposed that the year 2018 be declared as the Year of the Child Rights and the National Commission on the Status of Women tasked to plan the year long celebrations. Children are made to disappear before they are subjected to various forms of abuses and violence he said. “Children will be doomed to this fate as long as the citizens continued to disappear without trace and perpetrators of the crime were not brought to justice.” He added, “If we have to end child abuse we must also end enforced disappearances from the country, bring the perpetrators of enforced disappearances to justice and reform the criminal justice system.” Published in Daily Times, January 20th 2018.