The Consortium for Street Children (CSC) in London estimates that there are about 1.5 million children on the streets of Pakistan. They are often subjected to violence, sexual abuse, child labor or forced into drugs.
Karachi is the city of Pakistan- where it is said that 50,000 children have been connected to the streets. Many among them are involved criminal cases informed to the Sindh High Court by Sindh authorities in response to a petition filed to the Sindh High Court. Approximately, 20,000 street connected children said to have been in the Quetta city of Balochistan are 60% are scavengers. However, the population of street connected children must have been much higher in Punjab considering its all over population.
Out of 1.5 million, 43% are said to have not attained more than 15 years of age. Most of those have been associated with garbage collection work, begging, drugs use and some of them have associations in capital making industries such as child labor.
These children do not have access to education, health, and legal support and apparently, they are deprived of basic fundamental human rights. Despite laws in place across Pakistan (weak to some sense), the population of street children has increased in the last decade or so even after the introduction of numerous policies and strategies in order to minimize the rampant increasing population of street connected children.
Prior to the introduction of the Destitute and Neglected Children Act (DNCA) of 2004 (amended in 2017) in Punjab, primarily four major laws said to have existed across Pakistan for the protection of rights of children. After the promulgation of the DNCA 2004 in Punjab, the Child Protection & Welfare Bureau was created under the law for overseeing issues of children across Punjab.
Today, it has 8 operational units all across Punjab, and some 11 units will be established in the coming year all across Punjab. It is on the record of the Child Protection Bureau that from 2013 to 2018, the Child Protection Bureau has rescued 30,992 children (a total of 2,093 children were rescued in 2013 while in 2014, 4,707 children were saved). Similarly, the figure was 4,536 in 2015; 7,087 in 2016, 7,412 in 2017; and 5,157 in 2018. Akin to that, a total of 117 children were taken into judicial custody, while another 113 children who experienced domestic violence were given protection. Moreover, cases against 489 accused persons who were charged with the crime of forcing children into beggary and subjecting them to physical and sexual abuse were registered. Throughout the five-year period, around 25,766 children were reunited with their families.
On the other hand, the Sindh provincial assembly in the year 2011 passed a set of laws on the basis of which the Sindh Child Protection Agency was notified in the year 2014. The funds for the agency were allocated in the 2016-17 budget, but the institution had yet to start operations and nothing had been happening in Balochistan and the KPK provinces. However, it is not out of place to mention here that law passed in Punjab and Sindh are meant to provide protection to children who have not been charged with any criminal acts. For dealing with such incidence, Pakistan introduced a Federal law Juvenile Justice System Act (JJSA) in 2018 for the protection of the rights of children in conflict with the law. JJSA 2018 repealed the Juvenile Justice Ordinance 2000 with a view of strengthening the juvenile justice system of Pakistan, and integrating juvenile offenders in lines with General Comment No. 10 on the United National Convention on Rights of Child (CRC), which Pakistan ratified and signed in 1990.
A non-governmental organization, Legal Awareness Watch (LAW), orated in the recent Conference on Issues of Street Children organized by (CSC) held virtually in London this year due to the outbreak of Covid-19, that the street children have often subjected to violence, abuse, or sexual exploitation all across Pakistan. Akin to that, it is safely depicted that children who have been behind the notorious 104 prisons of Pakistan were street children at a glance.
The first premises of children who have no parents/orphans or eloped from their homes due to poverty, lack of food, family’s oppression, etc. live on the streets and they are the ones languishing in prisons on account of alleged criminal acts. Furthermore, it surfaced during the said conference that exact figures on the population of street children and juveniles behind prisons across Pakistan to date is not unknown. For this reason, policies and strategies aiming at the protection of children introduced in past years had found to be miserably failing and inoperative. Promulgation of JJSA 2018 at the national level and child rights laws at the provincial levels could not provide protection to children behind bars and on streets of Pakistan.
Provisions of JJSA 2018 to date have not been implemented all across Pakistan. Children below the age of 18 often found subjected to violence (same as street children) in prisons or killed extra judicially during physical remand under section 167 CRPC 1898 i.e. Muhammad Rizwan in 2017 in Lahore.
Juveniles behind prisons and street connected children do not have access to education as guaranteed under Article 25 (A) of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973 nor do authorities tend to have schemes or strategies for their integration into society.
In this writer’s view, the juvenile justice system and laws pertaining to street connected children shall be construed and seen from the prism of UNCRC itself and its comments i.e. General Comment No. 10, and 21. The process of protection of child rights had emerged in Pakistan after it was withdrawn its reservation on July 23, 1997 (that the provisions of the CRC shall be interpreted according to the principles of Islamic Laws and values).
Thereafter, in year 1999, the then President of Pakistan, Pervez Mushraff issued a presidential notification grating remission to children behind bars and sentenced to death or life. That was a point where laws specifically for juveniles and children in general began to merge from the floor of the Parliament.
The writer submitted that children either allegedly accused of criminal acts or living on the streets of Pakistan shall be given their due fundamental human rights and laws promulgated for their protection must be implemented effectively. That would only be achieved if exact figures pertaining to street children and children behind prisons could be traced. The population of street children and juveniles across Pakistan isn’t accurate. It is rather outdated.
*The writer is an advocate, based in Lahore, Pakistan. He can be reached at greenlaw123@hotmail.com
November 8, 2020
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
