Daily Times

LAHORE: A child rights ogranisation on Saturday urged the upcoming government to include child rights especially child protection issues into their 100-day roadmap to put a limit on violance against children.

This was urged during a media briefing by Search For Justice and Child Rights Movement, Punjab after a seminar on “Setting the way forward for prioritization of Child Rights after General Election 2018”.

The event was held at a local hotel in connection to celebrate International Youth Day 2018 under the theme “Safe Spaces for Youth”.

On the occasion, Children Rights Activist and Executive Director Search For Justice Iftikhar Mubarik showed its deep concern over not prioritizing the serious issues related to children by leading political parties except few, through their election manifestos. He said that it is a serious concern for civil society organization working for promotion and protection of children’s rights.

He urged leading political parties who are going to form their governments both at national and provincial levels to include Child Rights and Child Protection into their initial roadmap so the marginalized segments of society could able to get strong political support for addressing long-awaited interventions especially establishment of The National Commission on the Rights of Children at federal level. As well as the establishment of The Punjab Commission on the Rights of Children at the provincial level, formulation and adoption of Child Protection policies in each province followed by a comprehensive national and provincial action plan to deal with an issue of violence against children.

CRM Coordinator Rashida Qureshi urged for introducing institutional mechanisms for implementation of recommendations accepted by Pakistan under Universal Periodic Review held in Geneva in November 2017. She particularly highlighted the issue of early and forced marriages as recalling that Pakistan accepted a recommendation made by Bahrain asking to work on raising the legal marriage age to 18 years. She highlighted the need to devise a clear roadmap to address the issues affecting the lives of children by taking on board all key stakeholders.

Sameer Haider, Child rights defender, also urged the government to establish safe spaces for children and young people where they can express their view freely, willfully and without any discrimination. ‘Article 12 of UNCRC emphasize the meaningful participation of children and establish their right to be heard,’ he said adding that state parties must encourage the child to form a free view and should provide an environment that enables the child to exercise her or his right freely.