The Weight of unseen Hands: Disposable Childhoods in Pakistan
Like disposable cutlery – used, tossed aside and forgotten – the fate of too many children in Pakistan is marked by vulnerability and systemic neglect. A chilling reality unfolds where the very institutions meant to protect the young frequently enough fail, leaving them exposed to abduction, inadequate healthcare, abuse, and exploitative labor.
The recent abduction of a newborn from Lahore General Hospital, occurring despite the presence of staff, security, and administrators, starkly illustrates this breakdown. The incident wasn’t a sophisticated operation, but a consequence of exploitable weaknesses in hospital handover procedures, perhaps facilitated by corruption. This raises a terrifying question: has childbirth become less safe than the act of kidnapping within a hospital setting?
Even if a child avoids abduction, the path to survival is fraught with obstacles. Karachi,a city of over 20 million people and a key economic hub,struggles to provide sufficient Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) beds. Parents are forced to plead for access to life-saving care for their infants while authorities cite budgetary allocations that seemingly vanish before reaching the patients.The destination of these funds remains unclear, with accusations pointing towards corruption, middlemen, and bureaucratic mismanagement – resources diverted from the very wards where babies are dying for lack of oxygen.
Should a child navigate these initial hurdles, the dangers don’t cease. reports consistently surface detailing abuse within classrooms and madrassas, environments that too often prioritize control over nurturing. these aren’t isolated incidents; they represent a pattern of physical and emotional abuse, with children, often from impoverished backgrounds, subjected to beatings, humiliation, and harsh ”discipline” at the hands of those entrusted with their education. Families, driven by economic necessity, may send their children to madrassas seeking sustenance alongside religious instruction, placing them in the care of individuals whose methods prioritize rigid control.
For those who survive these early years, the prospect of a dignified future remains bleak.In sindh province alone, over 1.6 million children between the ages of 10 and 17 are engaged in labor.half of these children endure particularly harsh working conditions: long hours, exposure to dangerous machinery and toxic substances, and the burden of carrying loads exceeding their physical capacity, all while receiving inadequate compensation and nourishment. This reality defines a Pakistani childhood for far too many, a childhood sacrificed to fuel economic activity at a low cost.
Simultaneously occurring, authorities frequently enough respond with ineffective policies and performative displays at donor-funded conferences. This inaction resembles a tragic blindness, a failure to address the escalating crisis as children suffer and disappear. The justice system, crippled by dysfunction, offers little recourse, leaving children vulnerable in a political and judicial landscape prioritizing power and profit.
The responsibility for this systemic failure rests not only with the government and the justice system,but with a society that has,through inaction and normalization,allowed these abuses to persist. Every abduction, every healthcare shortage, every instance of abuse, and every child lost to hazardous labor represents a collective failure – a weight of unseen hands contributing to the disposability of a generation.
