Civil Society Working Group Sindh on GSP Plus on Sunday urged the Sindh Government to empower Treaty Implementation Cell to develop co-ordination mechanism with the federal government for compliance of UN Conventions on Human Rights as required under the UN treaties and conventions signed and ratified by the Government of Pakistan.
This demand came from CSWG's members who spoke at a press conference at the Hyderabad Press Club on Sunday. The group members included Punhal Sario, President Sindh Hari Porhiat Council, Zulfiqar Halepoto, author, Javed Soz of Sindh Community Foundation, Aakash Ansari and Nobahar Wasan who expressed concern over the human rights situation in Sindh. They called for effective implementation of 27 international conventions that come with the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) Plus status for Pakistan allowing duty-free exports to European market.
They said that the most important body responsible for implementing the human rights agenda was not empowered and not given adequate financial and human resources alongside technical facilities to carry out its mandate independently. The Cell continues to struggle with staff and resource constraints despite the passage of over a year since its establishment and over two years since the GSP+ was granted to Pakistan.
They asked the provincial government to address the rights gap in the province by making relevant laws, and creating a more citizen-centric atmosphere for the people of Sindh.
The said it was good that the cell was constituted like other provinces. They also appreciated that the Sindh province made important strides as far as legislation was concerned and that included establishment of the Sindh Human Rights Commission in 2013 under the Sindh Protection of Human Rights Act 2011. The Commission headed by the first woman judge of High Court Retd Justice Maida Razvi, has powers including taking suo moto action on petitions of human rights violation or negligence of such an act by a public servant.
The Group mentioned that under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), governments have committed to ensure the overall protection of children and young people under the age of 18. For that they stressed on the need of a Provincial Commission on Child Rights with the mandate, capacity and resources to implement child rights.
They noted with concern that the rights situation in the province has not improved much. Honour killings continue unabated with Sindh recording highest number of killings in the name of honour since 2013-2014 (602 out of 933 recorded in the entire country). Violence against the non-Muslim communities presents a grim scenario. Cases of forced conversions of young and even underage girls of the Hindu community have been consistently rising while the police and courts have been seen acting extremely irresponsibly in addressing this gross violation of human rights. Attacks on Hindu temples have increased.
They further said that in 2014 alone, at least six Hindu temples were attacked. All this comes with a stark rise in the opening of madrassahs by radical religious groups, backed by political parties, in the province.
The Civil Society activists expressed their distress over reported extra judicial killings and disappearances in Karachi and other parts of the province. They cited that according to the Commission of Inquiry on Enforced Disappearances, out of 1,273 cases of such disappearances in Pakistan, 186 occurred in Sindh province (reported in the media in February 2015). These abductions include political workers and those considered a threat against the so-called national security. Given the fact that the avenue for seeking justice is very limited, these cases intensify the distress of the local population and add to the divide between the state and the citizens. All this has an extremely negative impact on the fundamental rights, representing serious violations of the civil and political rights of people of Sindh, they said.
The Group noted that there are 1.8 million children not going to school in the province. Poor access to healthcare is not only reported in the substandard state of government-run healthcare facilities but also in the inability of the Extended Immunisation Programme (EPI) to protect children from diseases such as polio and hepatitis.
They said that Thar crisis was also a reflection of the inadequacy of healthcare facilities in underdeveloped areas. With infant mortality rate at 81 per 100,000 births and maternal mortality rate at 314 per 100,000, the province's health indicators are one of the worst in Pakistan. The same figures for Pakistan are 78 and 276 respectively. Such factors reflect the provincial government's non-seriousness in protecting the right to life and healthcare of the province's citizens.
The Civil Society Group underlined the need for effective legislation to end child labour and abolition of bonded-labour. "Sindh must immediately pass anti-bonded labour law as it is still pending. After the 18th amendment a number of labour laws are yet to be adopted by Sindh Assembly.
The speakers expressed serious concern over deaths of children in Thar saying that right to food is basic right.
"We demand provincial government to take immediate measures and a permanent arrangement to ensure adequate nutrition for children in Thar and address poverty there," they urged.
Comments
Comments are closed.