ISLAMABAD: Child Rights Movement (CRM), a coalition of over 100 NGOs working for promotion and protection of child rights in Pakistan, yesterday urged the government to increase budgetary allocations for child welfare.
Speaking during a report launch entitled ‘National and Provincial Budget Analysis from a Child Rights Perspective’, civil society representatives showed their concerns over poor budgetary allocations for children’s education, health and social welfare.
The report reveals that Pakistan spent only 2.37 percent on education and 2.20 percent on health as a percentage of GDP in 2010-11 which is lower than what most South Asian Countries had allocated.
While in 2012-13 Pakistan allocated 0.622 percent of GNP (Gross National Product) for child focused education, 0.107 percent on child focused health and 0.02 percent on child focused social welfare.
The sum of all allocations for child focused health, education and social welfare is 0.75 percent of the total GNP which indicates that low priority has been given to children and their schemes, programmes and projects.
The report also reflects that the country allocated 2.23 percent of GNP for Defence and 2.44 percent of GNP for subsidies which is greater than the total allocations made for children in Pakistan 0.75 percent of GNP.
During launch of the report, CRM members urged government to allocate sufficient resources as per Concluding Observations and Recommendations of UN Committee on the rights of the child made during considering 3rd and 4th State Party Report of Pakistan.
The civil society representatives also called for expedition for implementation of Article 25-A allocating adequate resources to ensure Free and Compulsory education for children aged 5-16 across the country.
Internews
