ARY News 12 PM News Bulletin | 7th Dec 2024 | Justice Mansoor Ali Shah's speech
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00:00Justice Mansoor Ali Shah Taqreeb se khitab kar rahe hain.
00:06In our country.
00:07So, children who are sitting here, now I am addressing my judges how to do things for
00:12you.
00:13You see, so you are at the heart of it again.
00:15So that deserves a big clap for you and thank you for being here also.
00:20So thank you to UNICEF, thank you to Valerie Khan also who is actually the silent worker
00:25behind all this and she is not only on the stage but she is the one who has done a lot
00:29of work.
00:30Big clap for her too actually.
00:33So all these people and of course the dynamic team at FGA, how could I not sort of appreciate
00:38them which includes the DG, Fakhar Sahab and Shahzia and the others also who have done
00:43a lot of work behind this child justice.
00:45So child justice means a lot to us and I am sure later on you will see there are some
00:50activities here.
00:51We are trying to set up a center at the FGA for children so that when judges come for
00:56training, they sort of go into that center and get more sensitized towards child rights.
01:02We are also, you know, thinking of other things that I will talk about like child court, court
01:06country, we will talk about that in just a while.
01:09So I just want to share a few things, some of the ideas that I had on this subject.
01:14But let me just start off by saying that children are not only our future, they are our present
01:20also.
01:21So that's very important.
01:22Sometimes we think it's about future, it's not the future, it's right now and I think
01:26we need to take stock of things right now as we speak.
01:30So and I rely on this wonderful, I mean, while preparing this I got to know a number of child
01:36right activists who have written wonderfully well over the years.
01:39So Janusz Korczak, must be Polish, has written wonderfully, he says that children are not
01:45the people of tomorrow, they are people today.
01:49They have a right to be taken seriously.
01:51So that's something.
01:53And also want to quote another saying by Desmond Tutu, who said children are a gift from God.
02:02They are not just tomorrow's citizens, they are citizens today.
02:06So a lot of people are emphasizing the contemporary understanding of children, you see, we all
02:11think that's the future.
02:12No, it's not the future, it's today and we must think of that way.
02:16I want to start off by talking about a wonderful person which I discovered during my research.
02:23This is Eglantaine Jep.
02:27This is, she's born in England in 1876 and was a pioneering social reformer and I would
02:34urge the children and others to read up about her.
02:37And she founded an organization called Save the Children way back in early 18th century,
02:44an organization dedicated to improving the lives of children worldwide.
02:49After witnessing the devastating impact of World War I on children, so that Save the
02:56Children organization and the work she did, she came up with the Declaration of the Rights
03:00of the Child in 1924, which became the foundation for the UNCRC, which was later on the convention
03:09that we talk about the UNCRC, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child.
03:14So she was a pioneering lady, you see, and I would urge everybody to read up about her
03:19because she's written wonderfully well and her iconic quote is, the only international
03:25language in the world is a child's cry, which has become, the quote becomes iconic for its
03:31simple yet profound acknowledgement of children's universal vulnerability and the need for collective
03:37responsibility.
03:39Yet across the globe, millions of children suffer in silence, disregarded, overlooked
03:45and deprived of justice that they deserve.
03:48So UNICEF's profound concept of voice of the child, I'm really actually impressed by the
03:53phraseology of it, voice of the child reminds us that justice is incomplete without listening
03:59to those it serves.
04:01The voice of the child isn't just about hearing children, but about amplifying their voices
04:08and we need to understand that.
04:10We don't really in the courts, frankly, judges sitting here, we don't really listen to children.
04:16In our courts, the child is presented and we ask the parents what to do, what to do.
04:21And as if this is a commodity standing on the side, you agree with this, don't you?
04:26We don't interact with the child.
04:28The child is standing in the court, we talk to the parents, we make a decision about their
04:32life, they also have a right to say something.
04:35So one of the biggest things that is coming out of this convention is that listen to children.
04:40Please, they also have a mind, they also have a thought, they also have feelings, listen to them.
04:46So the first message will be, please listen to the children in the court.
04:50That would be the first lesson for me as a judge.
04:53Next time a child appears in your court, listen to the child, talk to the child, have a conversation
04:59with the child, make him participate, her, participate in the proceedings.
05:15So the Voice of the Child program of the UNICEF is actually designed to ensure that children
05:20are actively involved in matters that affect their lives, promoting their right to be heard
05:26and participate in the decision-making process.
05:29This, to my mind, and this to the world perhaps, is child justice that we want to talk about.
05:36So children are defined by law as who are under the age of majority in this country
05:41or in any country, usually 18 years old.
05:45Child justice refers to a specialized system of laws, policies and practices designed to
05:50address the unique needs and rights of children, ensuring their protection, rehabilitation
05:56and reintegration into the society.
05:59We need to put the children back into the society.
06:02Earlier, Madam Rabia also referred to the fact that if a parrot is stolen, it is in jail.
06:07That's not it.
06:08The children have to go back into the society.
06:10We'll talk about diversion and other things.
06:12Reintegration is critical for children.
06:14I mean, you can't treat them like ordinary adults.
06:17They have to go back into the society.
06:21So when we established the first child court in Lahore, the concept was that the children
06:26should not be disturbed by the formative years of the judicial system.
06:31They should not be involved in the judicial system.
06:33So we made the child court separate, on the outside of the complex, so that the child
06:37can come and do whatever he wants.
06:38Get done with his case so that he gets back to life.
06:41You see, rather than his case is tagged along with all the other cases.
06:45And for a 15-year-old or 20-year-old child, it is not necessary that it is a criminal case.
06:50The child could be a witness in a case.
06:52The child could be just a respondent in that case or a defendant or could also be an accused.
06:56So that was the concept of child courts that we tried to establish.
07:03And we plan to do that.
07:05And just as Jamal is here, who is very actively participating in a number of reforms, that
07:08we need to take child courts in the country, all over the country.
07:12It is not difficult to make it.
07:13It is just a matter of case management that all the cases of children go there.
07:17I'm sure Islamabad High Court could have a look at that also.
07:21So this system emphasizes restorative approach over punitive measures.
07:26That's the critical part.
07:27Aiming to create opportunities for children to leading fulfilling lives.
07:32As Nelson Mandela aptly said, there can be no keener revelation of a society's soul
07:38than the way in which it treats its children.
07:47So like all of us here, these children have human rights.
08:06We need to understand that.
08:08Which includes the right to speak out and express opinions as well as right to equality,
08:14health, education, a clean environment, a safe place to live, and protection from all
08:19kinds of harm.
08:20This is the mandate.
08:22In fact, the approach is that the children should be more dear and more important to
08:27us than ourselves.
08:29That should be the approach of a judge to my mind.
08:32Children, a child walks into your court, you know, you need to get very sensitively alert.
08:37Oh, let me just sort this out first.
08:39You can't make the child sit the whole day and not listen and forget about that.
08:43That case must automatically, that file must speak to you immediately.
08:47That this is the case I must address immediately.
08:49And with compassion and all that that I'm going to talk about in a minute.
08:53So statistics, briefly, they've been mentioned earlier also.
08:56So according to UNICEF, again, there are about 2.4 billion children in the world,
09:01nearly a third of the total human population.
09:04Global challenges include, we come down to Pakistan, but global challenges are children
09:08in conflict zones.
09:10Over 450 million children live in conflict-affected areas where justice is often inaccessible.
09:16And it's very heartening and depressing, actually, to talk about genocide at Gaza and
09:21the figures that are coming out are disturbing.
09:25I move on to child labor and exploitation, another global challenge.
09:29The juvenile justice system is another challenge because incarceration rates remain alarmingly
09:35high and rehabilitation systems are often punitive rather than restorative.
09:40This is a global dilemma.
09:41Digital vulnerabilities is a new thing.
09:44Online exploitation, cyber bullying, and trafficking are emerging threats to child safety.
09:50This is a global threat also.
09:52Coming to Pakistan, as of 2023, there are 107 million people under the age of 18 in
09:59Pakistan.
10:00Out of these, 71 million children are aged 5 to 16.
10:05And it's a unique situation that Pakistan has a young generation than any other country.
10:10I think 60-62% are young people in this country.
10:13So we need to be overly alert as to what we're doing because we need to channelize this energy
10:18into something more fruitful.
10:20Our issues in Pakistan would be child health to start with.
10:24Nearly half of Pakistan's children are deficient in critical vitamins and minerals.
10:29More than one-third of households are food insecure and with 18.3% of households are
10:36affected by severe food insecurity.
10:39One of the eight adolescent girls and one in five adolescent boys is underweight.
10:4456.6% of adolescent girls in Pakistan are anemic.
10:49So this is worrying.
10:50This is worrying.
10:52We don't see this, but when we read about this, this is certainly very disturbing.
10:57The second big area is the child education itself.
11:00An estimated of 36% or 25.3 million of these children are out of school.
11:08I mean, this is a big responsibility.
11:10How could this be possible?
11:12I mean, any adult sitting in this room, you know, 25.3 million children in this country
11:19are out of school.
11:20We need to be doing something about it.
11:23I don't want to quote other figures.
11:25I'll just move on.
11:26Children with special needs, I mean, that doesn't even show.
11:29Nobody even looks at that.
11:31According to the survey of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics taken by Nadra, there are 0.4
11:37million.
11:37That's 0.4 million is about 300,000, 371,000 children.