Human Right
School children teach ethics to the government!

Children representing 69 schools in Karachi handed over a petition containing over 75,000 signatures to the Minister for Social Welfare and Special Education, Nawabzada Khawaja Muhammad Khan Hoti. This petition was addressed to the Prime Minister of Pakistan requesting him to sign and ratify the UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The convention was adopted by the UN on Dec 13, 2006. So far, since March 2007, 129 countries have signed the Convention, but sadly, Pakistan has not yet been one of them.

Mr. Hoti was asked to take on the responsibility of passing this petition on to the Prime Minister. The Minister accepted this responsibility and said he was committed to supporting the cause for improving the rights of people with disabilities.

Over the past 8 months, these school children have been campaigning for the rights of people with disabilities with the help of the Children's Museum for Peace and Human Rights (CMPHR).

The following seven organisations have collaborated with CMPHR in support of this campaign: Al-Umeed Rehabilitation Association (AURA), Ida Rieu, Institute of Behavioural Psychology (IBP), J.S. Academy for the Deaf, Karachi Vocational Training Centre (KVTC), Show You Care (SYC) and Special Olympics Pakistan.

The campaign has had three elements to it.

- To raise awareness about disabled people in our society and the problems they face in their day to day lives.

- To campaign for better facilities and access for disabled persons in public spaces.

- To petition the government of Pakistan to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People as a first step towards creating better conditions and laws for Disabled People.

The children agreed that although this was a big step forward in their campaign, they would not stop here and would continue to campaign until the UN Convention was signed and ratified by the government of Pakistan.

We wish all the above listed organisations Godspeed in their endeavour. It's definitely the duty of our government to ratify and implement the Convention and we hope that they do something soon. Hats off to CMPHR! Way to go, folks!