The Government of Balochistan, in collaboration with the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) inaugurated a two-day national workshop on countering the menace of child abuse was inaugurated here today, bringing together key stakeholders from across the country to discuss and commit to a clear roadmap for the establishment of responsive and coordinated child protection systems.
The Inception Workshop on Child Protection Case Management and Referral System in Pakistan, is the first of its kind being held to recommend ways and means to effectively counter the issue of child abuse in the country. The inauguration session was chaired by the Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage, Marriyum Aurangzeb, who is also the chairperson of the Parliamentary Special Committee on Child Abuse.
Marriyum Aurangzeb said, “It is very important that we work collectively to raise awareness amongst communities, especially the vulnerable and those devoid of technology or infrastructure, so that they have the confidence to report cases of child abuse. It is heartening to note that Balochistan and Gilgit Baltistan have taken the initiative to address social challenges with support from international partners. I would like to thank all international partners such as DFID and UNICEF, who have been continuously helping Pakistan by giving us technical support and the review of international best practices in Child Protection.”
The objective of the workshop as highlighted by the speakers is to support the creation and strengthening of a protective environment for children in Pakistan, primarily through adopting a systems approach to tackle the issue and gain a common understanding of how the systems should operate. The speakers emphasized that Pakistan surely needs to break new ground and set itself as a regional leader in establishing a public coordinated child protection case management and referral system to prevent and respond to cases of child abuse.
The Chairman of the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), Justice (Retd.) Ali Nawaz Chowhan also addressed the gathering and said, “With the recurring incidence of child abuse, one can see the importance of this workshop. We need a concerted effort as we see the children being exploited and abused in the country. This is very unfortunate. It falls on the civil society and organisations such as UNICEF to take up the leadership of a big movement for the protection of our children and NCHR will fully support it.”
Balochistan is the only province to have enacted child protection legislation which is completely aligned with the minimum standards set by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), a process that was technically supported by UNICEF. Likewise, the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan has recently approved a Child Protection Bill which is also fully aligned with the UNCRC.
