Children are supposed to get an education and play. Unfortunately in Pakistan, there are more than 2.5 million children living in streets who toil hard to support themselves and their families. Domestic violence caused by highly inadequate family incomes has forced around 56% of them to leave their homes, 22% are out of school and another 22% have to work to support their families. There are 28 million such helpless children across the world, most of them having been rendered homeless by conflicts. The worst part of the whole thing is that these children make up half of the world’s refugee population. The situation is depressing, outrageous and a serious moral indictment of human society. This should attract the notice of humankind and rouse its indignation, but the plight of street children continues to be ignored. As the numbers of these children swell, so does their misery.
Sadly, this is the situation when most countries have signed the UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child as sufficient efforts are not being made to improve the lot of street children. In order to bring about a positive change in the lives of homeless children, it is necessary to follow the measures recommended by the United Nations. Policies should be based on these four guidelines: commitment to equality, protection of every child, ensuring access to services, and devising specialised solutions. However, successive governments in Pakistan have failed to ensure children’s rights even though the country ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as far back as in November 1990. The authorities seem to have developed cold feet with regard to enforcement of laws relating to child nutrition, child labour, child education, juvenile justice, child marriage, etc.
In Pakistan, a considerable number of children suffer from malnutrition. Around 33% are underweight, 44% are stunted, and 15% wasted. Overall, 50% are anaemic. Under these conditions, it is unrealistic to expect proper physical and mental development of children.
Final nail?
Here goes the last nail in the PDM’s coffin. PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has torn apart the show-cause notice issued to his party by the PDM – in an act that appears to replicate how his grandfather Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had, as the Foreign Minister of Pakistan, torn and thrown away a copy of the Russia-backed Polish resolution in the Security Council during the 1971 war and walked out of the venue in rage. The video, often played on TV, depicts ZA Bhutto as a tough man – a trait having a popular appeal in politics.
Bilawal’s re-enactment was followed a day later, on Monday, by the PPP’s Central Executive Committee formally rejecting the show-cause notice – seeking explanation on why the party secured votes from BAP, a ruling coalition member, to clinch the position of opposition leader in Senate – and directing all its office-bearers in the opposition alliance “to submit their resignations … in protest of the attitude, conduct and actions of other office-bearers of the PDM”. The ANP has already quit the PDM alleging that it has been “hijacked” by some of its members for their own interests.
Frankly speaking, the PDM show-cause notice provided the PPP with the opportunity it must be waiting for. It was naïve of the PDM to be expecting the PPP – the ruling party in Sindh – to agree to resign from the assemblies, specially when there were all the signs of the party having found space among the good books of those who matter. Apart from the resignation issue, the PPP was never comfortable with the idea of a long march too, insisting instead on cornering the ruling PTI in parliament.
It has been the PPP’s divergent position on a strategy to send the government packing that compelled the PDM leadership to blow hot and cold on major decisions, thereby appearing as a confused lot. Are we going to see another PDM member or two joining ranks with the PPP – like the ANP did – given the political convenience available there?
New census
The Council of Common Interest approved the results of the 2017 census despite the misgivings of Sindh, opening the door for further debate and delays of post-census activities. Oddly, and perhaps worryingly, the government has also said that a new census will be held towards the end of the year — just seven years after the last one.
PTI may well become the first government anywhere in the world to publish two separate census results in the same term in office. This stands out because the census is normally a once-a-decade exercise, not just in Pakistan but in most countries. The reason here is that the exercise is very expensive. Planning Minister Asad Umar said Rs23 billion would be set aside for the endeavour, which is almost equal to the federal health budget. Demographic changes also generally take a while to become noticeable, and holding censuses too close together may dilute their prominence and impact.
It could also give the impression that the ruling PTI is not satisfied with its election prospects and could use the opportunity to interfere in constituency demarcation to help give its candidates a better chance — Umar said the 2021 census results would not be available until 2023, but they would still be the basis for delimitation for that year’s elections.
That said, if done transparently, a new census might help resolve the debate over one of the most glaring anomalies in the 2017 census — the population of Karachi. The Sindh government — and most Karachiites — see the 14.92 million population figure as a severe undercount. Many believe the actual figure should have been well above 20 million, especially considering Lahore’s population of 11.13 million.
The impacts of such a significant undercount are manifold, but at the simplest level, they create an underfunded city as they reduce Karachi and Sindh’s share of tax revenue while also impacting urban planning decisions for a city that is already overly urban and underly planned. To a lesser extent, Islamabad also has the same problem, with thousands of citizens being unfairly counted in their ‘home’ districts instead of the cities where they live and work, and use public infrastructure, services and utilities.
