Pakistan currently has a population of approximately 170 million and is the sixth most populous country in the world. It is projected to grow to 295 million by 2050, becoming the fourth most populous country in the world. About two-thirds (65 percent) of the population is rural, with children under-five comprising about 14 percent of the total population. The under-five mortality rate is 94 per thousand live births, and the neonatal mortality rate is 54 per thousand live births. According to an estimate, Pakistan ranks fifth among countries having the highest number of hungry people, with women and children among the worst affected where 85 per cent of the population lives on income less than two dollars a day and food costs are more than 50 per cent of the monthly expenses.
Education is a low priority in public spending; sharing only 2.3 percent of the GDP. According to UNICEF, the literacy rate is 54 percent (Male 66.25 percent, Female 41.75 percent). There is wide criticism on the level of the quality of education provided to children at primary level, but most alarmingly, it shows that a large sizeable population is out of school and living in difficult circumstances. This clearly indicates that Pakistan lags behind in meeting Millennium Development Goals and is way behind in meeting the target for 2015.
Being located in South Asia, it is considered to be prone to natural disasters, like floods, earthquakes, and droughts. The two gigantic earthquakes in October 2005 and 2008 along with floods in 2007 in Balochistan and Sindh are latest instances which have enormous human, social, economic, and environment distress. In recent years, instead of high economic growth, Pakistan remains low at providing human security to its citizens; pervasive poverty, explicit conflict in the neighbourhood and implicit within, elusive political system, widespread corruption, weakening access to justice, and fragile governance and many more causes, increase insecurities for the people of Pakistan. The primary target of this dismissal situation is vulnerable groups; poor, disadvantaged, excluded, minorities, women and most categorically children.
Child Protection Issues
These bleak economic and social indicators are directly influencing the lives of the children in Pakistan. Children constitute over 49% of the population of Pakistan; it is estimated by UNICEF in The State of World’s Children 2008, around 70.6 million of more than 160.9 million people in Pakistan are under eighteen and 19.0 million of the total number being under five. Unfortunately, there have been persistent low levels of investment in children – especially child protection in Pakistan. Furthermore, in recent times, natural disasters and conflicts have given birth to new manifestations of child protection in Pakistan; child suicide bombers and child soldiers have emerged a recent threat to the State and society.
Civil Society Analysis
In Pakistan, civil society organisations have emerged as a key strategic partner in defending, promoting and realization of the rights children. It has been very successful in agenda setting and policy formulation, monitoring, advocacy, innovation in giving solutions and even filling the gaps by provision of services. Simultaneously in recent times, particularly last one year, has raised the importance of other key civil society actors; media and lawyers.
However, civil society is suffering from a number of challenges. There are questions of legitimacy and accountability in political terms, sustainability, efficiency and effectiveness, donor driven agendas, and poor capacities. Similarly, funding constrains have pushed many civil society organizations to opt for project approach with focus on service delivery rather than pursuing rights based approach. The child rights agenda is still on the periphery of the civil society movement in Pakistan and need to be linked with regional and international civil society networks. The existing child rights programming capacity of civil society organizations is limited and available capacity building initiatives are not institutionalized; particularly civil society organizations need to build themselves on knowledge management, research, documentation, advocacy and making constructive engagement in child right’s policy analysis, development and implementation. There is a need to establish systematic monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to improve accountability, efficiency and effectiveness of the civil society organization.
The Policy Analysis
The Constitution of Pakistan pledges to remove illiteracy and provide free and compulsory secondary education within minimum possible period (Article 37 (2)), forbids slavery (Article 11(1)), all forms of forced labour and trafficking in human beings (Article 11(2)), employment of children below the age of 14 in any factory or mine or hazardous occupation (Article 11(3)). It also declares all citizens equal and call State responsible for protecting family, mother and child.
Similarly, there are number of national and provincial laws existing in the Pakistan. It has developed and approved the National Policy and Plan of Action on Children on May 24, 2006. However, implementation of laws and policies is a question mark.