THE RELIGIOUS, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS AND CHILDREN RIGHTS SITUATIONS IN PAKISTAN

Abstract

Children rights is a significant concern of the nations and societies in modern world. The children were conceded as the property by their parents until 19th century. In 1889, Britain and France passed laws for child protection firstly and gradually those were followed by others states as well. United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 is first international document that comprehensively described the social, economic, and cultural rights of the children. Among other 193 member states, Pakistan is also bounded to establish children rights situation appropriate in accordance with international standards. Nonetheless, Pakistan ranks sixth among the nations that has worse record for protecting children’s rights, since the children continue to be the subject of exploitation socially and economically and denial of their fundamental rights. It becomes evident that the poor social-economic conditions in Pakistan lead to make the children rights situation in Pakistan adverse. The present research addresses the myriad socio-economic dynamics that negatively affect children rights situations in Pakistan. It discusses the human rights conferred by international community such as United Nations and nationally by the Constitution of Pakistan 1973. This study argues that although Pakistan has made discernable developments regarding making laws to protect the children rights, the poor socio-economic conditions—i.e. poverty, illiteracy, less budgetary allocation for children, corruption, terrorism, discriminations, and lack of accessibility to basic needs—lead to poor implementation of those laws and consequently the violation of children rights occurs. The methodology of study is descriptive-cum-analytical. Qualitative method is adopted for the present research and data have been collected from different national and international official documents (treaties, conventions and constitutions).