Daily Times

HYDERABAD: The Child Rights Movement (CRM) on late Tuesday organised a consultative meeting to examine the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recommendations.

Reportedly, the representatives of civil society, media and government departments participated in the event.

During the consultation, Iqbal Detho explained the purpose and process of the review and emphasised on the role of civil society to implement the recommendations. Meanwhile, Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), a leading child rights organisation in Pakistan, Executive Director (ED) Sajjad Cheema shared that out of the total 269 recommendations, 52 were directly based on the issues of rights of children.

He said that 10 recommendations on child rights were noted, whereas remaining 42 were accepted by the state. “By accepting these recommendations, the state has confirmed its commitment to take effective measures for their implementation,” he added. He said that most of the recommendations impelled to prevent child marriages and child labour.

“The state is further recommended to take immediate measures to ensure access to free and compulsory education without gender discrimination, he said, adding that building infrastructure for child protection and allocating resources to implement laws regarding child rights was one of the major recommendations.

Meanwhile, Kashif Bajeer briefed the media that consultation was arranged to raise awareness amongst civil society and the media about child rights in Pakistan.

The participants appreciated efforts of the CRM and emphasised on the development of an effective strategy to follow the UPR recommendations, and offered their support to formulate an ‘action plan’ for implementation of the recommendations.

Published in Daily Times, September 13^th 2018.