Government urged to take steps for reducing gender gap

Source: The News

Date: February 14, 2011

Civil society has called upon the government to take special measures for reducing gender gaps as are revealed in national and international reports, particularly in the area of education and health sectors. 

In a statement issued on the occasion of National Women’s Day, the Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) has urged the legislators and policy-makers to allocate more resources and further vow the commitment to address gender disparities in key human development areas to pursue national women’s development agenda. 

The statement mentions that the literacy rate of women in the country is 42 per cent and only 52 per cent of girls complete primary level education. Similarly 25 per cent girls reach the secondary level whereas only 4.2 per cent are enrolled for higher level education.

 It says that primary enrolment rate for female in Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa and Baluchistan is 41 per cent and 32 per cent respectively despite government special initiatives to meet the Midterm and Millennium Development targets for 100 per cent primary enrolment till 2015. 

It says that health indicators show that for 100 boys, only 88 girls are immunised. Infant mortality rate under five years is 94 per 1,000, which is highest if compared with other regional countries.

 Women access to professional health services is 35 per cent and maternal mortality figures of 276 in 100,000 live births explicitly marks that women are denied to health rights. Gender related indicators are expected to further deteriorate by recent flood and poverty being arousing out of war against terrorism and internal displacement in conflict areas. 

For more details: http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=31049&Cat=6&dt=2/14/2011

 

 

Severe malnutrition persists among flood-hit children : UNICEF

Source: Express Tribune

Date: February 11, 2011

Six months after the floods, one of the most urgent issues facing the affected people is the alarming levels of malnutrition among children.

A report by UNICEF ‘Children in Pakistan: Six Months After the Floods’ presented an analysis from July 2010 to January 2011 of the reach and scale of the disaster, UNICEF’s response and the growing needs that continue to alarm relief organisations.

To put the malnutrition crisis in perspective, the report presented Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) rates in the flood-hit areas of Punjab and Sindh, released in late January 2011 by the Sindh and Punjab departments of health.

A GAM rate reveals how many children in a given population are moderately or severely malnourished, while SAM is an acute state which makes a child 10 times more likely to die before his fifth birthday compared to a healthy child.

The World Health Organization gives 15 per cent as the emergency threshold level to trigger a humanitarian crisis.

In Northern Sindh, the GAM rate is 23.1 per cent and in Southern Sindh, it is 21.2 per cent.

The SAM rate in Northern Sindh is 6.1 per cent, posing an immediate threat to the lives of 61,000 children.

In Punjab, data reveals a GAM of 14 per cent, just below the emergency level and an SAM rate of 3.6.

Survey results from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan are expected this month.

For more details: http://tribune.com.pk/story/117154/severe-malnutrition-persists-among-flood-hit-children/

 

Notices issued on plea for rights of street children

Source: Daily Dawn

Date: February 9, 2011

KARACHI, Feb 8: The Sindh High Court on Tuesday put the provincial government, the home department, the Karachi district coordination officer and the provincial police chief on notice on a petition seeking shelter, education and basic necessities to 32,500 street children in Karachi.
A division bench comprising Justices Gulzar Ahmed and Imam Bux Baloch put off the hearing to March 1.

The petition was filed by Iqbal Kazmi, a representative of the Human Rights Commission for South Asia, who submitted in the petition that as many as 32,500 street children in the city had been forced to become sex workers, beggars or do menial jobs.

Referring to a survey conducted by his organisation, he stated that 17,000 children had trickled into the metropolis from different parts of the country.

The petitioner submitted that 2,800 children were being forced to earn their living as sex workers, while over 12,000 children were involved in begging. Besides, he said, over 11,530 children were working in different restaurants; 1,685 at different workshops and garages; and 9,860 were working at different industrial units and fish harbour.

The petitioner stated in the petition that 7,840 children were involved in crimes and their cases were pending in different trial courts, while only 17 children were presently kept at Remand Home, set up especially for underage prisoners. He submitted that the government was responsible for provision of education and shelter to the street children but unfortunately despite the presence of several laws for child safety no step was being taken to provide basic facilities to street children.

He stated that the social welfare department, which was responsible for the welfare of the children, was not performing its duties despite allocation of Rs119.450 million budget for the purpose.

For more details please click on link: http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/09/notices-issued-on-plea-for-rights-of-street-children.html

State-run girls schools lack basic facilities

Source: Express Tribune

Date: February 8, 2011

ISLAMABAD: The majority of the state-run girls’ primary schools across the country lack sanitary staff and clean drinking water facilities.

This was revealed by a country-wide survey of government primary schools for girls by the Free and Fair Election Network’s (FAFEN) Education Monitor division.

The survey monitored 137 primary schools for girls in 87 districts across the country. It was revealed that sanitary workers were not present in 72 per cent of the monitored schools, while 49 per cent of the monitored schools did not provide clean drinking water facilities to children, putting them at risk of water-borne diseases.

Transparency surfaced as a major issue during the survey as 20 schools did not provide information about the sanctioned teaching posts, while 66 refused to provide information about their non-teaching staff. Information on teacher and student attendance, on the day of the FAFEN observer’s visit, was also withheld by some schools. The survey revealed that seven per cent of the total sanctioned teaching posts and 13 per cent of the sanctioned non-teaching posts in these schools were lying vacant. The highest number of unoccupied teaching and non-teaching posts were observed in Sindh, which were nine per cent and 22 per cent respectively.

Nationwide, the average number of students per teacher came out to be 34. The highest number of student per teacher ratio was observed in Fata, where one teacher was appointed to 45 students on average. The lowest student per teacher ratio was observed in Sindh, where one teacher was expected to teach 27 students.

For more details click on link: http://tribune.com.pk/story/115528/state-run-girls-schools-lack-basic-facilities/

Flood-hit areas in Punjab Infants at risk of worst malnutrition: report

Source: Daily Dawn

Date: February 04, 2011

LAHORE, Feb 3: Infants are particularly at risk of worst malnutrition in flood-affected districts of Punjab and malnourished children are likely to be from families of the poorest quintile, living in temporary or kacha houses, and those who have bank liability. This was revealed by speakers at the launching ceremony of Nutrition Survey Report on flood-affected areas of Punjab held under the auspices of the Punjab Planning and Development Department at a local club on Thursday.

According to the report, poor sanitation, unhygienic practices and lack of access to services are aggregating factors in malnutrition.

The global malnutrition rate among children under five in flood-hit areas is 13.9 per cent while the rate of acute malnutrition — associated with highest rates of morbidity is 3.5 per cent. More than 60 per cent households are living in `kacha` (houses with mud or thatched wall) while the rest is in cemented structures.

The report says efforts should be made to reduce the high rate of chronic malnutrition and to improve the knowledge of the communities about the Infant Young Child Feeding (IYCF).

Results of the survey, conducted in November 2010 by P&D`s Bureau of Statistics, in collaboration with Unicef and Action Contre la Faim Canada (ACF-Canada), were shared with stakeholders at the ceremony attended by secretaries of the social sector departments, programme managers of various PMUs, DCOs of nine districts and representatives of donor agencies and NGOs. The academia was represented by KEMU, FJMC, LUMS, LSE and Punjab University.

A blueprint of the response plan prepared by the provincial health department for the flood-affected communities was also shared in which it was pointed out that since the onset of the floods in Punjab, the government in collaboration with Unicef and the nutrition cluster had screened more than 211,000 children for malnutrition in flooded areas.

For more details: http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/04/flood-hit-areas-in-punjab-infants-at-risk-of-worst-malnutrition-report.html

 

Violence against women: 8,433 cases registered in Punjab in two

Source: Daily Dawn

Date: February 3, 2011

ISLAMABAD, Feb 2: The Senate was informed on Wednesday that over the past two years 8,433 cases of violence against women were registered in Punjab and a total of 11,798 all over the country.

Minister of State for Interior Tasneem Qureshi said that 1,656 cases were registered in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 680 in Sindh, 333 in
Balochistan, 362 in Azad Kashmir, 272 in Islamabad and 62 in Gilgit-Baltistan since January 2009.

He said the quarters concerned had been directed to act firmly against gender-based violence and district police officers, superintendents of police and station house officers had been asked to take preventive measures.

Mr Qureshi said proper investigation was carried out in such cases and the accused were arrested under Section 173 of the Criminal Procedure Code. He said special attention should be given to prosecute the cases for timely conclusion of trial.

The minister said nine women police stations had been set up in Karachi, Larkana, Hyderabad, Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad where female police officers were dealing with cases relating to women. Complaint units have been set up at Margalla and I-9 police stations in Islamabad.

Mr Qureshi said the AJK Legislative Assembly had added Section 174-A to the Criminal Procedure Code under which a doctor could record the statement of a woman set on fire and in the event of her death the statement would be used as evidence in a court of law.

He said all accused women were being kept in women police stations under the custody of lady police officers to protect them from gender harassment and they were interrogated in the presence of female police officers.

The minister said that according to National Alien Registration Authority there were three million illegal immigrants in the country. Of them 50,000 were from African countries and 30,000 to 35,000 of them were living in Karachi and Islamabad and adjoining villages.

He said that under the provisions of Foreigners Act, 1946, illegally aliens were apprehended by local police as well as Federal Investigation Agency.

The FIA had registered cases against four Africans in 2008, two in 2009 and only one last year.

Link: http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/03/violence-against-women-8433-cases-registered-in-punjab-in-two-years.html

 

Pakistan floods could have been minimised: US team

Source: Dawn News

Date: February 1, 2011

WASHINGTON: Last year’s disastrous floods in Pakistan could have been minimised if European weather monitors had shared their data and it had been properly processed, US researchers said Monday.

Catastrophic monsoon rains that swept through the country in July and August killed thousands, affected 20 million people, destroyed 1.7 million homes and damaged 5.4 million acres of arable land, experts have said.

“This disaster could have been minimized and even the flooding could have been minimised,” said lead author Peter Webster, a professor of earth and atmospheric science at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

“If we were working with Pakistan, they would have known eight to 10 days in advance that the floods were coming.”

Using data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF), Webster and colleagues found the floods could have been predicted if the data “had been processed and fed into a hydrological model, which takes terrain into account.”

Webster’s research has been accepted for publication in a future edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the American Geophysical Union said in a statement.

But the London-based ECMWF, which includes 33 participating European countries, defended itself saying it “does not give out weather forecasts and weather warnings to the general public or media.”

“ECMWF provides numerical forecasts to its member and co-operating states and they are responsible to prepare forecasts for the public and advise the authorities in their own countries,” ECMWF scientist Anna Ghelli was quoted as saying by the AGU.

The AGU said the information did not reach the Pakistani people because of a “lack of a cooperating agreement between the forecasting center and Pakistan.”

“The major result of the study is that the heavy rainfall pulses throughout July and early August were predictable with a high probability six-eight days in advance,” said an early release version of the paper.

“If these forecasts had been available to the regions of northern Pakistan, government institutions and water resource managers could have anticipated rapid filling of dams, releasing water ahead of the deluges. A high probability of flooding could have been anticipated.”

Pakistan’s own meteorological agency also did not forecast the flooding, the AGU said, of the research funded by the National Science Foundation.

Webster said he spent five years working with Bangladesh on a flood-forecasting technique and helped organise a cooperating agreement between the ECMWF, the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center and the Bangladesh government.

Subsequent flood warnings have helped save lives and up to one year’s salary per farm. The entire startup cost for a similar system in Pakistan would be a few million dollars, and about 100,000 dollars per year to operate, Webster said.

Link: http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/01/pakistan-floods-could-have-been-minimised-us-team.html