Barriers to Education: Social Realities and the Adequacy of Child Protection Policies on Abuse

Child abuse and lifelong trauma it causes to children is an issue that must be talked about in context of education access in Pakistan. Furthermore, there is a need to highlight the social attitudes that are responsible for denying education to victim-children, particularly to girl-children due to fear of losing “repute” or “honor” of their institutions or families. To understand it in detail, Ibtidah for Education invited Ms. Nabila Feroze Bhatti, a prominent child-rights activist with over 30 years of experience in research and advocacy with state and non-state actors and Sister Zeph, an educator based in Gujranwala providing free schooling to underprivileged children. We hope that from this conversation, our viewers will be able to understand what’s happening on ground and whether the laws, policies and practices dealing with child-abuse are adequately addressing this human rights concern.