Voice Of Children

SLAMABAD: Social groups and citizens have expressed their grave concern over the rising menace of child labour in twin cities, saying the ever-increasing poverty in the country is the main reason behind child labour. Citizens said that it is quite astonishing that child labour exists at the same rate in the federal capital as in the other parts of the country. Pakistan is one of the countries where child labour has surged to its highest level, they added. They said that the lack of opportunities, high rate of population growth, unemployment, and uneven distribution of resources and outdated social customs are the main factors behind this social menace. Children from the ages of 9 to 18 are almost equally vulnerable to child labour. Children work in the federal capital’s industrial area where they work under extreme pressure and are paid less as compared to other workers. online

Tears streamed down my face as I sat with my son in a Cambridge Arts Picture House watching a film about Umthombo – a charity in Durban, South Africa that helps street children. Umthombo have been involved with fielding a team for the Street Child World Cup and the film was a moving testament to the amazing ability sport has to transform people’s lives. When the film ended, Chris Rose from Amos Trust – the organisation behind Street Child World Cup – spoke about the successes in the other countries who had fielded teams in the 2010 competition. Eight national teams had taken part: Brazil; India; Nicaragua; Philippines; Tanzania; UK; and Ukraine. Durban is home to the biggest Indian population in a city outside of India – so perhaps fitting that India won the tournament in a match watched by the South African Minister for Children – and they returned home to an exuberant crowd after extensive media coverage. One of the players, Jatinder Singh was later picked for the India under 16s World Cup team. -Courtesy of Street Child World Cup. As Chris spoke about their aspirations for Brazil in 2014 – for more teams to raise more awareness of the plight of street children worldwide – I couldn’t help but think of Pakistan. I had been writing about football and its power to bring about positive change in Pakistan – could this initiative help them? -Courtesy of Street Child World Cup. The starting point has been to find out about Pakistan’s street children. I was honestly staggered at how many Pakistanis I spoke to (both in the UK and in Pakistan) who claimed that Pakistan simply didn’t have a problem with homelessness and children. Some even bragged that Pakistan was “not a country of beggars”, like neighbouring India. My mission on these pages is not about casting further shadows on Pakistan – who is already blighted with negative press – but to showcase wherever possible, the better, inspirational aspects of the nation, in the hope that a more encouraging narrative emerges to fuel positive change. So perhaps rather than pointing out the obvious – that, despite the title of this piece, Pakistan has a problem, like many other countries in the world, with children sleeping on the streets, often alone and abused – here is space to look at the remarkable work of people in Pakistan who do not turn a blind eye to the ills of Pakistan’s most vulnerable. So far I have unearthed two amazing charities who work specifically with street children. I am sure there are others – and I encourage them to share their work with links on these pages. The DOST Foundation has been graced with an article about their work in the Huffington Post. The article “Pakistan school strives to beat the Taliban trap” paints a bleak picture, but more of the drug trap than of the Taliban trap. The crucial thing not to miss is the meaning of DOST (i.e “friend”) and the hugely motivated team behind the charity. -Courtesy of DOST Foundation. I was in touch with Dr Parveen Azam Khan, and asked her what she would say to someone who said Pakistan had no such problems. She said that, “homelessness in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a problem for human beings most affected by the so called ‘war on terror’, as we are on the frontline, bordering Afghanistan. Many of the refugees from Afghanistan who took refuge in the area more than 30 years ago are still here. Their children are also homeless street children. Besides this, the big earthquake and recent floods rendered many families homeless. Added to all this, the ongoing insurgency, militancy and being in the war zone has led to an escalation in poverty and homelessness”. To get an idea of the scale of their work (and of the problem), since 1993 DOST, which Dr Khan established, has provided services to over 11,000 street children – with close to 4000 children provided with psycho-social and rehabilitation services. Dr Khan said that the biggest challenge faced by the children on the streets and prisons is the lack of financial support for organizations like DOST, “who continue against all odds to reach out with a message of hope and healing to these “lesser children””. She added, “any support extended to us by donors is for six to 12 months only, whereas the needs are increasing and never ending”. -Courtesy of DOST Foundation. Perhaps reducing the figure from 11,000 down to one will reach you. I asked Dr Khan for some examples of the children who had been helped and amongst others she sent me this rather basic set of bullet points, which moved me deeply. It was on a page headed, “if there is a person who is symbol of courage and firm determination it is Osama.” • Osama – a 13 year old Pakistani boy who ran away from home 3 years ago. • He is a child of a broken family. • At that time he was 10, when his father died during the war in Afghanistan. Osama’s father was in the Taliban Forces and wanted Osama to be a mujahid. • Sudden death of his father and physical torture of his step mother made Osama run away from home. • Osama went to Swabi, where he spent 2 years. But was sexually abused by the owner of a hotel. • He ran away and came to Peshawar. • This time again the little boy got abused sexually on the street. • DOST outreach team found him on the street, it motivated him for shelter at DOST Welfare Foundation, where he was rehabilitated. • He still wants to join Taliban to become a Holy Warrior. • Despite all these hurdles and homelessness, Osama is still so innocent and loveable. -Courtesy of DOST Foundation. The fact that someone could write about this child as a lovable innocent is true testament to the human spirit. Another boy, Dr Khan told me about was 10 year old Yaseen who is a drug addict and involved in the sex trade to get cash. As the work of Umthombo in South Africa shows – no matter how drug addled and abused, no child should be given up on. A second charity – The Azad Foundation was introduced to me by pure chance. They operate in Karachi – a city where I had been assured had no homeless children. Azad’s website describes how, for many children fleeing poverty and the pressure to “earn”, landing on the street seems to be a pleasant experience at first, “a sense of freedom, curiosity fueled by passion to crush the ghost past under feet, sadly when reality emerges into realisation life unfolds its horrible wings”. Azad, which emerged in 1998 as an initiative by students and staff at Karachi University, includes a creative approach – they have formed theatre to highlight the issue. “Class divisions and poverty were the most talked about issues” says Azad, with discrimination apparently based on the social, economic or ethnic backgrounds of the children. Azad have undertaken serious research into the problem of street children, not just in Karachi, but in Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta. Eight years ago they established the first drop in center for the protection and rehabilitation of street children. The center was initiated in Saddar Town in Karachi – one of the few places I have visited in Pakistan and now regret not “dropping in”. Last Friday, I spent one single night sleeping on the streets of London, with 60 others. Between us we raised close to £10,000 for Street Child World Cup by one simple, if cold and uncomfortable act. Of those I asked to sponsor me, it was the British Pakistani community who glowed brightest – more than half of the funds I raised came from them. And you might think this a grim article – but it those that give, those that act and those that commit their lives to organisations like Azad and DOST that we should be celebrating. Dr Parveen Azam Khan is a very special woman indeed – but there is genuine hope and generosity in many of us – especially in Pakistan. -Courtesy of DOST Foundation. You might wonder how taking a small team of footballers comprising of homeless children might make a difference. In 2010 the Tanzanian team returned home and lead discussions for 50 police commanders about their rights, which drew the attention of the President. The Mayor greeted the Ukrainian team, but travelling with them was the regional governor of Kharkiv, who is now committed to working with children’s institutions. The team from the UK continue to meet with youth workers and some are pursuing ambitions in professional sport. Every single member of the Nicaraguan team are off the streets and have been reintegrated with their families under the programme. The major media coverage the Brazil team received has helped change people’s attitude to street children and there is much work being done to prepare for The next Street Child World Cup in Brazil. So from Pakistan’s street children, let’s hope to see a team for Brazil in 2014 – it would be great to see them challenge India in an exciting final! Caroline Jaine is a UK based writer, artist and film-maker with a background in media strategy, training and diplomacy. Her book A Better Basra, about her time in Iraq was published in August 2011. More about Caroline’s work and her contact details can be found here and on facebook. The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

Pakistan is planning to punish parents who fail to have their children vaccinated as part of an increasingly desperate effort to halt the spread of polio.
The country is one of three – along with Afghanistan and Nigeria – that have failed to eradicate the virus.

Now the government is promising to take a more muscular approach to the problem by making immunisation compulsory, fining parents of children who are not protected and prosecuting religious groups who spread misinformation about vaccines.

Draft legislation, unveiled to coincide with a March vaccination drive, promises fines of more than £700 for parents who fail to comply.

Children could also be barred from school if they do not have an immunisation card.

Last year there were 198 cases of polio in Pakistan's tribal areas where limited health care, insecurity and large populations of refugees make it difficult to administer vaccine.

By: Atle Hetland
When I first came to work in Pakistan over 10 years ago, the NGO and UN crowd, together with the modern English speaking Pakistanis, had already started using the term “mindset”. It became an in-word that we all had to use. It took me a while to get used to it. I have worked in English for over 30 years and I have lived in English speaking lands for nearly as long. Still, my Norwegian mother tongue remains the language I know best, better than the world’s lingua franca of our time.

Mindset, though, is not only about language. It is about ideas, ways of thinking and reasoning. It is about understanding issues. It is about ‘how’ we see the world, and ‘what’ we see of the world, either by choice, convention or for a number of other reasons. In this article, I shall discuss a few aspects concerning the term ‘mindset’ and I shall give some examples of issues that need to be solved if we can only set our mind to doing so, and if we try to understand issues as the really are, and search for new ways to benefit all.

First, it is useful to consider the wider topic of how we learn and adopt specific mindsets, and how we develop our ideas and opinions. And, indeed, how we change - or do not change - our mindset.

In the field of education, we are concerned about learning theories and practices, especially how we learn new things. Today, we are more and more concerned about what we learn, too, since so much of the vast fields of knowledge are so easily retrievable in our time - not only from books and in printed form, but also from the Internet. Our access is limitless, but then our ability to learn, understand and remember is limited. How to learn and what to learn are fields for cognitive psychologists and for specialists in didactics and many other fields.

We have always been concerned about how to learn new things. But we have been less concerned about de-learning, how we can get rid of old and wrong ideas, impractical ways of thinking and doing things, how to correct misunderstandings so that we don’t keep repeating the same mistakes. We have been less concerned about how to be less stubborn and more open-minded and welcoming to alternatives.

In business schools, they talk about innovation. In design and art schools, they talk about creativity. In philosophy, they talk about paradigms and paradigm shifts, and broad trends in ways of thinking and analysing within academic disciplines. If they become even more advanced, they talk about whole cosmologies, and broad sets of ideas to form cultures. And in politics, they talk about change, yes, an everyday word, yet, so complex to realise. “Change - we can believe in,” said Barack Obama in his campaign for President of America three and a half years ago. And people wanted change. Imran Khan, too, knows that and all the other hopefuls preparing for the upcoming elections.

A few weeks ago I read a book about forced child labour, or slavery by its right name, on the cocoa plantations of the Ivory Coast in the West Africa. In Pakistan, there are children working in brick kilns, with similarities to the cocoa plantations. There are children working on the vast land tracts owned by feudal lords. And there are children working as maids and houseboys in homes of wealthy people, where they may be subject to use and abuse. They have no chance of going to school, and at best their parents get some pay at the mercy of the employer. No, it is not right, and we should not accept it, but somehow we do; we rationalise and explain away facts. “It would even be worse for such children to stay in their poor, real homes,” we say. Really!

We seem not to be able to see that it is wrong. Our mind is set in such a way that we ignore much of the reality. We see what we want to see. It is a form of blindness, or deceit, accepted by ourselves and the public. It is a mindset!

Knowledge with moral and ethical values can change our mindset. Public debate is needed. Groups and individuals should take up issues and tell us what is right and wrong. We should pray that we do the right we want to do, not the evil we do not want to do, as advised by Issa. Laws that are there to protect the weak must be enforced. Laws that belong to another time, and prejudiced interpretations must be changed. We must not accept gender-based violence, and not excuse it when it happens - for the sake of the victims as well as the perpetrators. Often, we seem brainwashed to live within unreal mindsets.

The huge socio-economic inequalities that exist in Pakistan cannot be swept under the carpet. The first step to change it is by admitting that such inequalities exist and that they are negative to everyone, also for the minority, say the 20 percent, at the top of society, and indeed so for the majority 80 percent of the people whose efforts run the society. Our mind is set in such a way that we almost believe class differences to be an inevitable “world order”. But it is not! The same goes for violence and war. It is not inevitable and there are peaceful ways of solving disagreements and conflicts - if we set our mind to do so.

Mindsets change, too, luckily - sometimes very fast, but usually after persistent challenging over time. The rulers, the powerful and the opinion leaders have to admit fault. Take, for example, South Africa’s apartheid system, which lasted in an institutionalised form for half a century. It became politically unacceptable, and economically too costly to maintain. But before it happened, even some good people defended it, perhaps against better judgment, or perhaps they belonged to the class and colour that benefited from the system. People were told it was right, and people were told not to challenge authority and hierarchy, which we say is part of any society. Sometimes, it is said that certain orders and ways are given by God. Through it all, people’s mindsets become fixed and kept in a screw. But then, South Africa’s apartheid is now history; America’s racial discrimination, too. Our mindset has changed. Yet, many more structural changes are needed in the aftermath to reduce inequality and differences.

When I grew up in Norway in the 1950s and 60s, reducing regional and class differences were top on the political agenda. Improving women’s situation came a bit later. In a couple of generations, gender equality has come far, evidenced, for example, in the Norwegian government where there is now 50-50 representation of men and women, likewise, in the boards of publicly registered companies. In Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries in the region, there is need for political debate of gender equality. There is also need for debate about gender equality in the practicing of Islam. Our set minds must be “set free”.

Often, new ideas that lead to new mindsets get impulses from outside. But they can only flourish if they grew roots within a society. Real change can only happen if the concerned members take part and have deciding power. The leaders must facilitate the debate, as it would be expected that they are more knowledgeable, open-minded and tolerant than the masses, often lacking sufficient information, knowledge and examples from elsewhere to inspire change. Only outdated leaders live in closed mindsets, afraid of change, worried about the consequences of opening the windows, fearing what change and broad participation will lead to, and simply not trusting people’s judgment and decisions. But changed mindsets do not change the world - you may say. But I say, it does! It is the basis for further change.

The title of this article, Changing mindsets, can be read as if mindsets are already changing, a passive action that is already happening. It can also be read in an active way: How can we change mindsets? That is what I want. I want us to find ways and strategies to change our closed mindsets. We should all be active in identifying how change can happen, how improvements can be made, for ourselves and for others.

The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist based in Islamabad. He has served as United Nations specialist in the United States, as well as various countries in Africa and Asia. He has also spent a decade dealing with the Afghan refugee crisis and university education in Pakistan.

Email: atlehetland@yahoo.com