October 04, 2016
More than any other time of the year, the entire country is on a knife’s edge during the month of Muharram. Our unfortunate recent history has shown us that militant groups are likely to strike during Muharram and target the Shia community. Also obvious is that no matter how much security the government provides, it is an impossible task to secure every space in every city of the country. And no matter how many attacks are foiled, it takes only one successful attack for militants to claim a propaganda victory. The plans announced by police throughout the country certainly make it seem that they are taking security during Muharram seriously. Of the over 65,000 who will be deployed to provide security during the month, more than 25,000 will be posted in Karachi, where some of the most devastating Ashura attacks have taken place. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, every procession, no matter how small, will be provided protection while Islamabad will be provided security by over 11,000 law-enforcement personnel. As impressive as all this sounds, past experience has taught us that foolproof security is always an illusion.
Some of the measures taken by law enforcement should be cause for worry. In Islamabad, the police have said they will launch search operations in slum areas where Afghans reside; there is a danger that Muharram security could be used as an excuse to target Afghans. In Peshawar, the district administration has imposed Section 144 in the city, banning the entry of Afghans to the city for 10 days among other measures while only banning arms dealing for three days, which seems an odd inversion of priorities. The irony of discriminating against one marginalised community in the name of protecting another marginalised community should not be lost on anyone. The coming month, particularly for the next 10 days, will be one of the largest security challenges the federal and provincial government, the intelligence agencies and the police have faced in a long time. Their ability to protect everyone in the country without discrimination will go a long way towards restoring faith in our institutions while any failure could plunge us closer to irreparable division.
Child labour
The question of child labour in the country has been debated again and again. But there is really no debate about it; children should be at school and other means need to be found to help families who depend on their earnings to survive to manage. We simply cannot justify the fact that 25 million children in the country are out of school, out of which 15 million are part of the labour force. A seminar in Karachi held by the Society for the Protection and Rights of the Child and the Child Rights Movement, an umbrella of 60 Sindh-based organisations working for child protection, has noted that the abolition of the 1991 Employment of Child Act with the passage of the 18thAmendment had left children increasingly vulnerable. New legislation at the provincial level is needed as part of the devolution process. It has also been pointed out there has been no survey of child labour in Pakistan for 20 years. Such a study is badly required to determine precisely how many children go out to work and in what circumstances.
There is also a need to eradicate the confusion that exists over child labour. Perhaps, speaking of the immediate, it is inevitable. But at the very least we can adopt measures to protect children in their workplace as has happened in the Sialkot sports industry as a result of ILO intervention and international pressure. Schools have been set up for children where they work and a limit put on the hours of labour. The same is true of the carpet industry. But in the longer run, this is not enough. As stated at the seminar, ‘a child employed is a life destroyed’. We need to ensure that the lives of so many children in our country are not destroyed. Too many children are denied opportunity because they must go out to work. There have also been findings that the poor state of public sector schools and the refusal of children to attend them results in parents instead sending them out to work in the hope that they will learn a trade. This cycle of evil needs to be addressed collectively and everything possible done to protect children, a large number of whom are employed in hazardous professions despite the fact that Pakistan has signed international conventions against such practices.
A rare thing
Over the weekend India once again started firingacross the Line of Control, naturally provoking aresponse from Pakistani troops. There was also an‘attack’ on an Indian army camp in Kashmir which killedone Border Security Force officer. Even the avian divisionof Indian law enforcement swung into action and detaineda pigeon which, according to reports, they claimwas sent by the Lashkar-e-Taiba with a threatening noteto Narendra Modi. Modi himself was in typically belligerentform, one again insisting that his country had carriedout surgical strikes across the border rather than randomlyfiring and taking pride in these supposed strikes.In the same breath, Modi also declared that India hasnever attacked anyone and is not hungry for any territory,an assertion that millions of Kashmiris will scoff at.In Pakistan, there was a long overdue show of unityas Nawaz Sharif chaired an All-Parties Conference attendedby the heads of all major political parties – withthe notable exception of Imran Khan. They agreed on theneed for national unity and condemned Indian aggressionand, for once, there seemed to be unanimity across thepolitical spectrum, with even the routinely oppositionalPTI having no critical words. The meeting agreed to thesingle-point agenda to send a message to the world tocondemn Indian aggression on the Line of Control andoccupied Kashmir, and the government decided to set upa National Security Council on Kashmir. Still, it can besaid that such a demonstration should first have come inthe form of a public joint sitting of parliament rather thana closed-door APC. What was encouraging was the attitudeof the PPP leadership which, while critical of thegovernment over the Panama Papers leaks and its failureto appoint a foreign minister, called for unity over theKashmir issue. The APC was meant to show the Pakistanipublic that political parties can put aside differences inthe face of an external threat. But for them to succeed inthat aim, this rare moment of political unity will have tolast beyond just one meeting.