After the 18th amendment and decentralization it has become
the responsibility of the provincial Governments to ensure the rights of
children as guaranteed in the Convention on the Rights of children Now the
provincial Governments are liable to ensure the “SURVIVAL” of the
children (Like issues of
development, health facility, security of their identity, registration, name,
social security and standard of living etc.) "DEVELOPMENT" (Like issues of
Family relationing, Good Parenting, Birth registration, right to be part of a family,
family care ,Education, information of rest world.) "PROTECTION" (Like issue of illicit transfer from
one place to another, interference with privacy, family, home, maltreatment,
Alternate care, Danger of Disability economic exploitation Protection from
illicit use of narcotic drugs sexual exploitation, child prostitution and child
pornography, right of social reintegration issues of Juvenile Justice etc.) and meaningful "PARTICIPATION"
in the decision making, the decision related to children.
Then the promised Millennium
Development Goals Like; Achievement of primary
education/schooling, Reduce Infant Mortality Rate, Improve Maternal Health , Combat HIV/AIDS,
Malaria, Tuberculosis and Other Diseases etc.
But to ensure and to promote all
these rights of the children the budgetary allocations and funds are basically
the need. The recently published report “National, Federal &
Provincial Budget Analysis from a Child Rights Perspective 2012-2013”
depicts that scarce and very limited
funding allocations are made both on national and provincial level
The Report
reveals that the child focused expenditures for the year 2012-2013 as a
percentage of GNP on Education is 0.622% , Child Focused Health 0.107%, and
child focused social welfare expenditures 0.020%. In total 0.75% are the
expenditures of our Gross National Product (These expenditures
are of both Provincial & Federal) and separately 2.32% of GNP is to be expensed out in the shape of
subsidies and grants.
Its shows
the overall situation of Child Rights is not even satisfactory but if we talk
about the situation of Punjab it seems obviously worst, According to data shown here
The total expenditure on the Education are 3.23% , Health expenditure are only
0.214% and social welfare 0.053%. In a nutshell overall child focused budget is
3.590 percent of total expenditure in Punjab.
The
report is mind blowing although there is need to go in depth how these
allocations are further classified and how this small financial input is affecting
us as a nation, but this report is good effort of ChildrenFirst, Save the
Children & CRM Pakistan.
The Provincial and National
Assemblies have abolished, the caretaker Governments are in, this is the
election year, I am unable to comprehend why the prime minister of Pakistan
last year announced it Year of Child Rights in Pakistan, In May we are going
for polls, and we hope that elections and
democratic process will bring the change but don’t forget to keep in mind before stamping the ballot how these politician keeps ignoring the rights of
children and How they expense out the public money for their own sake and what
are they investing for our future/ for our children, Through Public awareness on these issues and with a contiuos knocks on the doors of policy makers we can realize them there is loads of need to work for our future genrations and If they realized it or even showed their little political will, then we will be able to say 2013.is Year of Child Rights.
