Pakistan ranks second in the world for Out-of-school childrens

KARACHI, June 27: Pakistan ranks the second with the most out-of-school children in the world with only Nigeria ahead of it, said a child rights body on Thursday.

In its annual report titled ‘The state of Pakistan’s children 2012’, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) said about one fourth of the 19.75 million children in Pakistan aged five to nine were out of school and factoring in adolescents increased the number to 25 million. Of them, seven million children (aged three to five) had yet to receive primary schooling.

“The country reduced its spending on education from 2.6 per cent to 2.3pc of the GNP (gross national product) over the decade and ranks 113th of the 120 countries on the Education Development Index,” said the Sparc report launched in a hotel here on Thursday.

At the provincial level, Punjab has the highest NER (net enrolment rate) for children in primary schools at 61pc followed by Sindh with 53pc, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 51pc and Balochistan with the lowest at 47pc. Pakistan has an NER of 74.lpc for all age groups enrolled either in primary, secondary or higher education.

Pakistan has the lowest youth literacy rate with 70.7pc. Only 61pc of girls are literate as compared to 79pc boys in the age group of 15-24 years.

Progress has been slowest in low-income countries, especially Pakistan, where only 15pc children received pre-primary education in 2010. It quoted a recent report saying 63pc of children aged three to five years were not receiving any education related to early childhood development.

The country ranks 129th among the 135 countries on the Gender Gap Index 2012 according to the Global Gender Gap Report. Data shows that gender parity for primary schools in Azad Kashmir is close to 1 (0.97). The GPI for Punjab stands at 0.98, in Balochistan it is 0.83 and in Sindh 0.81.

The report said 43pc children born in Pakistan were afflicted with stunting. It was estimated that 21.7pc children were severely and 21.3pc were moderately stunted.

It quoted the United Nations Children's Fund as saying that under five years mortality rate had declined from 122 per 1,000 births in 1990 to 72 per 1,000 births in 2011; far from reaching the assigned target of 52 per 1,000 births as per the millennium development goal.

More than 423,000 children die before reaching their fifth birthday, and almost one in five of these deaths are due to pneumonia.

Pakistan accounted for nearly 30pc of all polio cases recorded worldwide. A total of 142 cases were reported in 2010; 198 cases in 2011. In 2012, the official reports show, 58 cases were recorded, excluding cases in the North and South Waziristan agencies.

It is estimated that 2.1 million cases of measles are reported annually in Pakistan and 21,000 of the reported cases die of complications from the disease. Pneumonia and diarrhoea account for 29pc of deaths among children under five worldwide or more than two million a year; with Pakistan ranking fourth among the countries with the highest prevalence of the disease.

A total of 55 of 96,000 infants, children and adolescents had been identified as HIV positive in Pakistan In 2012, around 5,659 cases of violence against children were reported across Pakistan from January to October 2012. These included 943 murders, 1,170 cases of injuries, 302 of sodomy; 204 of child trafficking, 410 of forced marriages and 164 of Karo-kari (honour killing) incidents, and 260 cases of missing children. Other incidents of violence included 407 cases of sexual assault, 547 torture cases, 323 child suicides, 530 kidnappings and 176 Vani cases.A total of 3,861 cases of child sexual abuse were reported in different parts of the country last year. Most of the cases were reported in Punjab (68pc), followed by Sindh (19pc), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (5pc), Balochistan (3pc) and FATA (3pc).

The report said 197 of the 3,581 victims of drone strikes since 2004 were children.

The participants said children in Pakistan had to cope with a lack of educational opportunities, poor health conditions, a near absence of protection for poor and vulnerable children, miserable conditions in juvenile jails and continued employment of children in hazardous occupations.

Violence against children remains culturally entrenched as children in Pakistan have to cope with physical violence, sexual abuse, trafficking, recruitment in armed conflicts and acid attacks. In the absence of a national database on violence against children, the report relied on secondary sources to give the prevalence of various forms of violence against children.

Pakistan engaged Taliban to get talks back on track

ISLAMABAD- June 27: Pakistan remains engaged with the Taliban to put the Doha process back on track after the controversial opening of the insurgent group’s Doha office that deadlocked efforts for peace in Afghanistan.

A Pakistani official told Nation news on Thursday that negotiators were talking to the Taliban leadership to persuade them to get on with the talks with the Americans and the Afghan government.

“The process is continuing. In fact it is in everyone’s interest that the process remains alive,” the official said.

Taliban had initially agreed for talks with the US and Afghanistan’s High Peace Council on Pakistan’s prodding, but the row over the name of the office used in the opening ceremony and raising of a flag at the Doha office angered the Karzai government which cancelled the visit of its negotiators to Qatar and suspended talks with the US on a bilateral security arrangement.

Later, the Afghan government agreed to join the Doha process following US efforts to salvage the talks, but Taliban leaders have yet to come up with their formal response.

A transcript of an interview of a spokesman for the Taliban office in Doha, Dr Mohammed Naeem, posted on the group’s website indicated that the insurgent leadership was moving towards the start of talks both with the US and the Afghan government.

“Talks will be conducted with all sides involved in Afghanistan… meetings will be held with all Afghans according to the exigency of situation,” Dr Naeem said.

However, Taliban intention to use the office for “improving relations with the world countries” and their insistence on the controversial name could still prove to be sticking points for the beginning of the dialogue.

American sources say that Taliban, after 18-month-long talks on Doha office, had agreed that they would neither pose themselves as a government in exile – as they had tried to suggest by adopting the name of Political Office of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan – or use the office as an embassy for reaching out to other countries.

The sole purpose of the office was to facilitate a political settlement of the Afghan war.

Among the other conditions agreed by Taliban, American sources say, was that they would meet the Afghan High Peace Council and sever relations with Al Qaeda.

Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Aizaz Chaudhry said at his weekly briefing on Thursday: “We have affirmed our commitment to consider all possible measures that we believe would contribute to the reconciliation process in the larger interest of peace in Afghanistan.”

Pakistan, he said, considered these talks as an important step towards national reconciliation in Afghanis-tan.

US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan James Dobbins earlier this week visited Pakistan and sought Islamabad’s continued support for the troubled peace process.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, after his meeting with Ambassador Dobbins, called President Karzai to reiterate Pakistan’s support for the process.

About the role played by Pakistan in the opening of Doha office, Mr Chaudhry said: “Doha process was facilitated by stressing on all stakeholders the need to hold dialogue to reconcile their positions in the interest of bringing lasting peace to Afghanistan.