The Sindh government has asked international donor agencies to extend support to the government and to NGOs who truly worked to bring about socio-economic changes in the country, Sindh Assembly Speaker Nisar Ahmad Khuhro and Provincial Minister for Information Shazia Marri said Friday while addressing the launching ceremony of a project titled, “Protection and Empowerment of Working Children in Sindh,” funded by the Save the Children Fund, UK.

The project is being launched by the NGO, TRDP. Marri said the international donors had funded projects for under-matric and graduates and supported them in past years, but there was no record of these funds.

She said the present government would carry out accountability into that funding. Marri recalled that Pakistan was a signatory to the UN charter for child rights, which had also been guaranteed in the Constitution of country. However, she said, the state of child rights was rapidly deteriorating in the country, she said.

Marri said according to a survey conducted some 13 years back, there were 300,000 children in the country engaged in various kinds of child labour, adding that the figure would obviously have doubled by now.

Even at this time, she said hundreds of children were exposed to the worst human attitudes like physical, mental and sexual abuses. She asked the social and government institutions to work collectively for protection and survival of such children.

Nisar Khuhro lauded the contribution of Dr Suleman Shaikh and Dr Sonu Kanghrani. He said though Dr Kanghrani had suffered inhuman attitude at the hands of the ex-Chief Minister of Sindh, he refused to capitulate.

He said rulers in the past had failed to serve society truly and just made tall claims, which proved false. He stressed the need for better education facilities and social welfare for children for Pakistan to progress.