Sangat Sindh Report on Child Condition in Nawabshah District

8/9/2019 Sangat Sindh Report on Child Condition in Nawabshah District

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Child Condition in Nawabshah District

Child Condition in NawabshahDistrict

ReportBy Nisar A. Brohi


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1. An Introduction

Millions of children in Pakistan have beenconfronting with many problems ranging fromdomestic violence to overall social injustice and

abuse in the society.They have beencondemned to live asneglected andmarginalized segmentin the country.According to anestimate that nearly 8million or 40 percentof the totalpopulation of childrenunder the age of 5,suffering frommalnutrition. About 63percent of childrenbetween 6 months and 3 years have stunted growthand 42 percent are anemic or underweight, and thathas ultimately forced to the innocent children intohosting different deadly diseases. Therefore,

mortality ratio has increased at the large scale inchildren especially in the rural areas of Pakistan.

Poverty, bad drinking water, physical and sexualabuse and child trafficking are among the areaswhere society and the government have bitterlyfailed to have good for children.

Education

Education is indeed only way to get rid of allother social malaise of the society, and take thenation to the path of socio-economic development.Therefore, the developed countries have had specialattention on their education sector. But like otherdeveloping countries, in Pakistan education sectoris the most ignored social sector. No sustained andserious efforts have ever been taken for the


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promotion of education in the country, especiallyin the rural areas where about 70 percentpopulation is living. The bitter fact is that about23 million children in Pakistan have never been inschool. Poor socialconditions havealso had badlyaffects on theeducation sector,where 23 million ofchildren dontattend school butare forced to workto complement the

scare familyincome.

Pakistan has been

facing two key problems in theeducation sector. One, is theproviding of educationfacilities in all areas of thecountry, especially the remote

and backward. The all-previousgovernments have failed toprovide education to thedowntrodden masses in theirrespective tenures.

Other problem is the educationstandard in the country. Theall governments have never

taken measures to ensure the standard of theeducation in the country. It is now open secretthat education system of our country is in a mess.Our educational institutions are just degreeproducer institutions, quantity not quality hasbeen considered the criteria of the education inthe country.

(He who opens the door of schoolcloses a prison: Victor Hegel)

Waiting For Allah

The innocent children ofvillage Khuda Bux aredeprived of educationdue to long closure of

primary school in thevillage. Their future is atstake. They have beendemanding schoolteacher but no body isthere to listen theirvoice. Is any body tohelp us and save ourfuture, they asked.


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On the other side, in the rural areas of thecountry, education isin worst condition.One, there is extremelylacking of facilitiesin the rural schools,such as the drinkingwater, latrines,electricity, with thisthe teaching staff alsodevoid all qualitiesand skills of educatingthe children. The mostof the teachers were

recruited by the political governments slaughteringthe merit and quality. Therefore, the majority ofteachers are devoid of allrequired skills andtechniques of teachingmethods. They are recruitedharbouring nepotism,cronyism and corruptionculture in the country.

As for as the case ofNawabshah district isconcerned, it is notdifferent from otherbackward areas of thecountry. According todistrict official figures,about 530, schools areclosed. A large number ofschools have dearth of basic

facilities such as drinkingwater, building, sanitationetc.

Education Is Also MyRight

Shazia of 10 years,wants education butno schools in thevillage. She

complained with herinnocent tone thatwhy she like other

retty children wasdeprived from theright of education.

We appealed to thegovernment andcivil society to

help us gettingeducation, to have

etter life in thefuture .


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There is also badly need to create awarenessregarding the importance of education in the ruralareas of district, because most of the populationis uneducated, therefore, they give low andsecondary importance to the education, so they arereluctant to send their children to the schools,where some schools are luckily in runningconditions. They prefer their children to supportthem in the income generating activities, so theyget employed their innocent children in thelabouring work in theearly age, which istantamount toviolation of the child

rights. There isdirely need to makeparents aware aboutthe importance ofeducation, with a viewto save the future ofthe children as wellas nation.

There is also need of

sustained efforts toget realize the civilsociety to work forthe educationpromotion and the child rights in the district.

Health

Health is the basic and primary requirement of anysociety, because without healthy society, no socio-economic development takes place. However, healthproblem in Pakistan has been very serious issue forover the decades in the country, and especially forthe child and women community in the rural andremote areas.


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Like other rural and backward areas of the country,the most areas of theNawabshah districtare also withoutbasic healthfacilities. Due todust, excess heat andilliteracy, thesanitary and hygienicconditions areunsatisfactory.However, in towns andcities drinking wateris available from

filtered hand pumps, open wells and tube wells. Inrural areas muddy canal water is used for drinkingand bathing purpose resulting in stomach diseases.

The rural folk have been facing many healthproblems in the emergency conditions. Because outof 31 Basic Health units, more than 20 basic healthUnits are either closed or shortage of required andnecessary medicines. Especially majority ofchildren in the rural areas is having problems of

malnutrition and other curable diseases but due tolack of health facilities they have been sufferingsfrom many diseases and their lives are at the risk.

Domestic Violence

The domestic violence is rampant in our society butit is considered out of law and as a family matter.It is therefore; neither the state nor the civilsociety has strongly condemned and taken action

against violent trends in the society against thechildren. Domestic violence incidents are takingplace more in the rural community as compare to theurban areas. Domestic violence is a routine andinternal matter of the family in the rural areas ofthe country, no matter how much it is a seriouscase. It has been observed that due the rampant


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domestic violence cases againstthe innocent children havealmost destroyed the future ofthe children.

Due to regular physical abuseand beating incidents of thechildren are not only the basichuman rights violence but alsolead child to depression anddisaster. Due to domesticviolence, there was an alarming30 percent increase over theprevious years in the number of

children running away from home.Most of these children said they

left home because of domestic violence and familyfinancial problems.There is direly need towork on this disastrousissue to save thechildren, to save thefuture.

Child Labour

Child Labour is alsothe main issue inPakistan. It isestimated officially3.5 million of childrenwere working inPakistan. Among them,2.4 million i.e. 73percent are boys and 0.9 million 27 percent aregirls. Out of these 3.3 million, 71 percent workmainly in unskilled occupations related toagriculture, sales, mining, construction,manufacturing and transport sector. It is alsomatter of fact that child labour in urban areas of

Victim of DomesticViolence

Ali of 15 years is nowbroken soul. Theparents used to beathim to join themincome-generatingactivities, but hewanted to go school.But at last he wascompelled tosurrender to theparents pressure,and compromise his


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the country has been widely deplored and condemnedand the governments of time and as well as civilsociety has raised their voice against the childlabour in urban areas.

But the child labour is ignored and is low profilecase in the rural areas. Neither the government northe civil society has ever raised strong voiceagainst rampant child labour in the rural areas. Alarge number of the innocent children are gotengaged in herding, agriculture cultivation,mining, brickmaking and otherlabouring work

etc.Due to poverty andunawareness in theNawabshahDistrict, theparents prefertheir children towork with them forincome-generating

activities ratherlet them go toeducationinstitution. Alarge number ofinnocent childrenpresently engaged in herding, agriculturecultivation, brick making, domestic labouring,hotel bureaus, hair cutting, and other such typehard and labouring work, where they suffered a lot

physically as well as emotionally. It is observedthat the employees of the children used to abuseand insults them, on the minor lapses in theirduties. However, these innocent children used to beon disposal of their employees on twenty-four hoursat any time the employees assigned them task, nomatter that one would easily be carried out or not.


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But the employees have to get that work to be done.Such kind of harsh and heavy duties mostlydestroyed the lives and future of the children inour society.

It is need of time to work collectively for theelimination of child labour especially in the ruralareas of the country, where a large number ofchildren are involved in bonded labouring, but noneis their to help them to come out from this mess.

Documents

Sangat Sindh Report on Child Condition in Nawabshah District