31st Meeting, 80th Session, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)

Good morning. I call to order meeting number 31 of the 80th session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It is my great pleasure to welcome again this morning the distinguished delegation of Pakistan and the head of delegation, His Excellency Mr. Barrister Akeel Malik, Minister of State for Law and Justice. I would also like to welcome all those observing the dialogue in person and via webcast. We would like then to invite the delegation to continue responding to any questions pending from the previous clusters, after which we will proceed to respond to questions posed yesterday on cluster 3 for up to 30 minutes. And following that, there will be more follow-up questions to the other clusters. To facilitate this process and enable us to cover the full range of issues at hand, I would like to invite my colleagues and the distinguished delegation to speak in a concise manner, giving due attention to the time allocations. With this, I have the pleasure to give the floor to the delegation. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Honorable Chair. Good morning. Buenos dias. Guten Morgen. Saba al-khayr and very good morning to everybody. Thank you very much for this time, and of course, since our discussions yesterday, they covered with the three clusters that we discussed, and the discussions and the replies on the queries that were posed by the honourable members of this committee. Obviously, the covenants of the Convention, starting from Article 1 all the way up to Article 15, We have covered that, and there were some issues that were left unaddressed in the interest of time. And of course, we'd like to address those in the first half hour. Now, with regards to various issues, I do understand it was issues surrounding minimum wage and corruption and the Transparency International, GDP growth. and other sort of associated issues. But I think we'll definitely start with the Secretary, Ministry of Human Rights, who is part of the delegation, Mr. Abdul Khaliq Sheikh. So without any further due, I would like to invite Mr. Abdul Khaliq Sheikh for him to share information that was left from yesterday from cluster one and two.

Thank you very much. Honourable members raised certain pertinent follow-up questions. Some of the parts of the questions or some of the questions entirely could not be covered yesterday, so I'll be covering a few of the questions and others will cover different topics. First, my response to enforced disappearances. We covered this yesterday. There was a follow-up question about the remedies available. There's one remedy of compensation for the families, and already 55 families have already benefited from this, and the compensation is up to half a million in rupees. The other remedies at legal level are available with courts. in the High Court and habeas corpus petitions also. There were questions on sexual orientation and gender equality, and one question was about same-sex marriages. So Pakistan's legal architecture operates on a principle that international treaties cannot override the explicit constitutional dictates of the country. The cultural relativism stance covenants must be applied in a manner that represents national sovereignty, religious frameworks, and local cultural norms. There's Article 2 to 7 of the Constitution of Pakistan, which requires all laws to be in conformity with the injunctions of Islam. So the matter is being governed by the existing criminal law within the constitutional framework. However, there are ample measures in place to prevent any violence against people on this issue. And a related issue was protection of transgenders, already covered by Ms. Nayab yesterday, but still, I would say that what we do in terms of sexual orientation is we make successful attempt in preventing people who can be target on the issue of sexual orientation or their identity. So Transgender Persons Act 2018 recognizes identity and prohibits discrimination in education, employment, and health care. And if violence and harassment fall under the general criminal law, and complaints go to the police, And even National Commission on Human Rights in Pakistan is also very active on this. Then I turn on to question on minorities. So just two aspects, data and the measures. So we were asked to share disaggregated data. The last census in 2023 recorded religion and mother tongue, so that data is available. And Benez Income Support Program and the Minorities Welfare Fund also hold beneficially data, but specifically socioeconomic data disaggregated by religion and ethnicity. Availability with us at the moment is very limited. And measures for protection and welfare of minorities. Other than the constitutional and legal guarantees, there's 5% quota in public sector organizations for their employment, and we have interfaith harmony policy, which has been recently implemented in coordination with the provinces and all relevant federal ministries. And a very good initiative is National Commission for Minorities Right Act 2025, and the commission will be operational very soon. And the Benazir Income Support Program does not discriminate benefits on the basis of religion. And we have data available on the beneficiaries of Benazir Income Support Program and social protection program that can be shared in the follow-up. I'll just save time here. And then I move on to women violence protection and evidence law. There was a question about the evidence law, which apparently puts at a disadvantage women in terms of financial transactions. Actually, that has very limited impact in practice because it covers only the financial transaction, and that too has been overridden by a number of successive of financial legislations, which we call a special law, which overrides this impact. And this evidence law does not have any impact in terms of criminal cases and inheritance rights of women. Now I move on to anti-corruption question. So for the anti-corruption measures, the government is, I would say, are pretty serious on this, and we have already signed UNKAC. We have ratified it. And in Punjab, they have recovered 6 billion, and in Sindh, ratio of disposal of cases of anti-corruption has risen, and they have restructured the anti-corruption organization. There was question about appointment of the auditor general. So it's a constitutional position. It's an independent office under constitutional article 168, 171, and the reports are laid before the public accounts committee, and those are published also. So these are provisions on independence and transparency. There was question on IDPs and floods and legal framework for displacement. So we have the National Disaster Management Act. And then we have mechanism in place, institutional mechanism, NDMA and provincial authorities that deal with disasters. And again, we have data about the displaced persons in recent years and what relief has been provided to them. Out of school children, as it was appreciated, the number has now declined. And this is because the Prime Minister has put in place emergency, and the provinces are on board, and collectively, they are working on this. The Workplace Harassment, Protection Against Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2010 requires inquiry committees and ombudsmen's office, and they have disposed of a large number of cases on this. Violence against women, prevention of sexual violence, and there was a question about convictions also, and harmful practices. We had laws on harmful practices of women and acid attacks, and the issues of what we call custom of gog in KP. and other such practices, those have been prohibited under those laws. And there was a question on marital rape also. So the Protection of Women Act 2006, actually, which was amended in 2006, it removed definition of, from the definition of rape, it removed marital rape as exception. So that was an encouraging moment, movement. And this, the criminal law was further amended in 2021, and it made it gender neutral also. On the child and early forced marriages, forced conversions, we have already enacted laws, as discussed yesterday, and very soon we'll have similar laws in AJK and KP also. for the forced evictions, all those evictions carried out in Islamabad and Karachi have been done with due process by a notice and protecting rights of those who have been living there for a long time, and their remedies against that under the law. So these were the topics that were left out from yesterday. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Khalid Sheikh. So before I invite the next member of the delegation to speak on gender equality and women's political participation, I'd like to definitely make a note because one of the issues that was raised was regards to seeking more information on women's political participation and women in judiciary. So just from the very outset, I'd like to state that our former Prime Minister, Shaheed Murtaza Bheneazee Bhutto, She was the first female prime minister in the Muslim world to begin with. Secondly, now we currently have a woman chief minister for the first time ever in the province of Punjab, and equally, for the first time ever, we have a chief justice of the Lahore High Court that too is a woman. So women's political participation as well as women's participation in the judiciary as well is of utmost importance to Pakistan. And now I'd like to invite Mr. Dr. Arif to speak and share on the information that we could not cover yesterday on gender equality and women's political participation. Thank you.

Head of Delegation, I would like to quickly respond to the questions, although these are the long list of the questions. Regarding political participation of the women, we have improved at two fronts. Number one, the registration of female voters have been almost doubled and they have outpassed the male voter registration. Like the gap have been reduced from 12.8% to 7.7% in general election 2024 since general election 2013. Similarly, the candidature of female candidates have been also improved from 2.7% to 4.3% in general election 2024 since 2013. It is almost a double figure. Similarly, the victory by female candidates against the general elections have also been almost doubled, and 26 women who contested the elections against the general seats and won their constituencies. So again, if we compare it with the general elections of 2013 and 2018, the figure is almost double. The next is women's elimination of discrimination against women and inheritance property rights. Yes, after enforcement of the Women Property Rights Act, there have been significant improvement. Now it is mandatory for the revenue authorities to transfer the properties of women, and that's why now the improvement can be calculated from 5% to almost 29% women have now the land ownership rights. And secondly, the provincial governments have taken initiative. to ease the system, to access to the regulatory framework so that they may easily transfer the properties in their name, particularly the inherited property. Now it is binding on the revenue authorities to consider the transfer of ownership of these properties which are owned by the women. And similarly, uh, the other question was, uh, any amendment or initiative regarding, uh, family laws? Yes, uh, the issue was taken by the government of Pakistan and the Prime Minister. empowerment package, which was introduced in 2024, and the matter has also been considered at political level. The concerned committee of the Parliament has considered the law, and the Ministry of Human Rights referred this law to the National Commission on the Status of Women to have a broader consultation of all stakeholders what type of amendments can be introduced, and the same recommendations have been referred to the parliamentary committee. And we are expecting that it will be considered at parliament level according to the will of the people and the input provided by all stakeholders. The other important question was the equality, to ensure equality among men and women. The Government of Pakistan has already committed politically and introduced various policy interventions, including Gender Policy Framework of 2022, whereby the focus is to eliminate all those discriminatory practices which hinder the equality of women with men. And similarly, Ministry of Human Rights has introduced two important strategies in recent past. One is the national strategy to end tech-facilitated gender-based violence, and the second is the national strategy involving males to address gender-based violence. So these strategies were developed with the pretext that when we involve the male, that become the agent of change. not only the perpetrators. So that has also been appreciated at national and international level, and we hope that this will further give impetus to bring the gender equality with regard to women and men. So these were the chunk of the gender equality, and the other left question is participation of women in judiciary, as the Honorable Head of Delegation has already mentioned that Pakistan has made history that the first ever women prime minister among the Muslim world was the Pakistani woman, and now the largest province has also the chief minister there. And the Supreme Court, in Supreme Court now there is a women justice. And similarly, the Chief Justice of largest province of Pakistan, Punjab, is a woman. And if we come to the district judiciary, the number have been increased to 21% of the female judges. And similarly, not only judges, even the prosecution and female prosecutors has outpassed the percentage of 21%. Similarly, we have Improved the participation of women in, uh, police and other law enforcement agencies. In past, it was around 4%, and now, uh, uh, we have almost, uh, uh, triplicate the number of women, uh, in police and other law enforcement agencies. Another important question was the healthcare expenditure with regard to women, and it is evident that due to public expenditure, now the mortality rate has been reduced and life expectancy rate of females surpassed the male life expectancy. It is around 69 years now. So I think these are the interventions by Government of Pakistan which have drastically improved the situation with regard to women. Similarly, the Ministry of Human Rights and other stakeholders are rigorously pursuing to implement the women empowerment package introduced by Prime Minister of Pakistan, and it is the top agenda at political front as well. And this political commitment has been transformed practically on the ground that Parliament has decided to Established a gender mainstreaming special committee headed by a seasoned politician, and all important issues, particularly pertaining to discrimination and other. malpractices are taken by that committee, and it has been ensured that all decisions are taken quickly and promptly. I will just quote one example that gender parity report was not encouraging introduced by the World Economic Forum, but this report has reflected that Pakistan has at least improved five positions better due to these immediate interventions. So, with permission of the head of delegation, I would stop here with regard to gender equality, and other follow-up questions will be responded later. Thank you.

Thank you very much, and thanks for sharing that very pertinent information, especially with regards to the Gender Mainstreaming Committee, which is a special parliamentary committee, of which I myself is also a member of. I also chaired a subcommittee specifically with regards to the very morbid ranking that we had in the past, I think about two years ago, maybe perhaps last year, being really at the bottom end on the World Economic Forum Gender Parity Report. So, of course, we've made those interventions and we are on our way to improve those rankings and numbers before. Now I’d like to invite Ambassador Tair Andarabi for his information that he would share with regards to questions that were still unanswered and left in the interest of time from yesterday, from cluster one and two on climate change, refugees, and other associated issues that were raised. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for giving me the floor. First, let me club the questions on the climate change and international cooperation that were raised yesterday. On climate change, the questions were mostly related to measures taken by Pakistan and on finance. And on finance, I touched it, but on measures taken by Pakistan, this is what I'll address. and partly on the financial assistance from abroad. On the measures taken by us, there are three sets of measures that I wish to highlight. One is the, first of all, is the National Adaptation Plan, how it has played out, then on emission and mitigation, and preventing and mitigating the impacts of floods. So in these three clusters, let me underscore that in the context of National Adaptation Plan 2023, which was adopted following the 2022 flood, there were 117 adaptation measures across six sectors that included agriculture-water nexus, natural capital, human capital, disaster risk reduction, gender, social inclusion, and urban resilience. So now, over the last three, four years, now the implementation has moved to the district level, with climate risk and vulnerability assessment being used to prioritize riverine floods, flash floods, droughts, and heat waves. Referring to each province, in KPK, From July 26, there will be an integrated, updated district administration plan, which would be merged in the annual development plan. Similarly, in the Punjab province, a climate budget tagging with rupees 795 billion of its 1,240 billion annual development program is marked for climate initiative. and 277 billion specifically for adaptation. So this is now part of the annual development plan, and a digital monitoring dashboard is also available in these provinces. Moving on to emission mitigation. In September 25, Pakistan submitted its third nationally determined contribution, committing a 50% reduction in projected 2035 emission, of which 17% is unconditional and 33% conditional on international finance, technology transfer, and capacity support. So the government has moved. National policy guidelines, for example, for carbon trading, first bilateral carbon market arrangement under the Paris Agreement has been agreed, and it is committed to add approximately 6,000 megawatts of solar capacity. Coming to the provinces, in Sindh, Sindh has taken a number of initiatives, for example, coastline resilience, water management, and has become the first province to implement a government-led carbon credit project through its mangrove restoration program. Punjab has successfully implemented clean energy projects, solarization of public schools, colleges, and tertiary hospitals. and its expanding waste-to-energy and biomass initiative. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has initiated projects focused on hydropower, afforestation, glacial lake registered and approved a billion tree plus project. This is a billion tree plantation within a specified time frame. Balochistan has established its first provincial climate fund and is pursuing rainwater harvesting, small dams, and groundwater recharge in response to severe drought condition. In the context of preventing and mitigating the impacts of flood, as I think has been stated before, as well as resilient recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction framework is underway. This was based on the post-disaster need assessment of US$14.9 billion and the recovery need of US$13 billion. The government has established a National Emergency Operations Centre focusing on high-risk areas. National Flood Protection Program envisages protection of 15.7 million people and 8.05 million acres of agricultural land and 2.2 million housing units. The Living Indus Initiative has restored more than 1 million acres of Indus basin. The Recharge Pakistan is implementing ecosystem-based adaptation, flood plans, reconnection, and groundwater recharge. Balochistan has implemented a comprehensive disaster preparedness program, conducting mock drills for various scenarios and training programs, and so on. The AP has taken various steps, particularly on the protection of vulnerable persons, establishment of a gender and child cell, development of minimum standards for protective spaces for children and women, guidelines for protection of vulnerable groups in disaster, for disaster District Disaster Management Unit. So these guidelines are now operating at the district level. SOPs for unaccompanied, separated, or missing children at the time of the disaster, a child protection and emergency strategy, and technical guidelines for inclusion of vulnerable groups in disaster reduction. Punjab has been proactive, particularly in hazard mapping for vulnerable districts. The provincial disaster management authorities and the provincial emergency operations center operate round the clock, equipped with modern technology. Since initiative in this area, provision of ration bags for particularly for pregnant and lactating women during drought condition, provision of tents, plastic tarpaulins, mosquito nets, ration bags. This is particularly people living along the rivers in the rainy monsoon season of July and August, and by year to manage heat waves, fire incidents, and cyclones. This also regularly provides capacity building training for disaster management and the community-based disaster risk management. Question was also raised on international finance and technical assistance. I gave this answer in detail. yesterday, particularly with respect to four funding facilities. But let me add, there was a question on what Pakistan is doing to harness support, international financial support. So let me briefly tell our distinguished colleagues that while Pakistan has taken a number of steps to attract international climate finance, the finance mobilized so far does not commensurate with actual requirement. Pakistan has developed a national climate finance strategy to address climate vulnerabilities and to bridge the projected climate finance gap by 2030, and our Ministry of Climate Change is proceeding, but essentially these are essentially to mobilize resources from within. The international climate support received by Pakistan to date has been predominantly provided through loan-based instruments, and this is something that we would wish to highlight. So additionally, we face challenges in securing finance through climate fund due to complex accreditation process, institutional capacity constraint, and lack of nationally credit entities to directly access international climate finance mechanism. So these are the systemic problems that not just Pakistan, but many developing countries face with respect to accessing international climate finance mechanisms. So these challenges should be seen in the context of existing high debt servicing obligations that severely restrict Pakistan's domestic fiscal space for climate investment. I mean, we are tapping bilateral donors in this case, but really, the systemic challenges are particularly overwhelming. There was another question of how does Pakistan assess the adequacy of international support for implementing its climate adaptation? So, Pakistan assesses and reports international financial technology development transfer capacity building into various mechanisms established under the Paris Agreement. So, our reporting and our highlighting of these gaps continue. So although Pakistan defined climate finance broadly from its national perspective to include all transfers such as grants, loans, and carbon market revenues, it restricts its official reporting under the Paris Agreement through BTR assessment strictly to assistance received through bilateral and multilateral financial supports, and this is as per the UNFCC SBSTA guidelines. Due to absence of a widely adopted national methodology or mechanism for Pakistan relies exclusively on the official government and donor information, and this is to ensure the credibility of our data. We explicitly distinguish climate financing, specifically targeting mitigation and adaptation, from green financing, which covers broad financial flows. So this is pretty much on finance. There were also questions about Asylum legislation and safeguard existing for Afghan nationals facing deportation. This is now the second cluster on asylum and deportation, particularly with respect to Afghan nationals. I wish to draw attention to our distinguished treaty body members. to the fact that Pakistan is not deporting registered refugees or those who are on valid visa. Let me reemphasize that. We are, basically, we have documented the bulk has been to undocumented Afghan nationals or those who have overstayed this visa. And I would request empathy of our colleagues here because, you know, we are in this country, almost all of us, on a valid visa. So try to stay few days excess to that, and then what these countries will do to us. So for us, it was very important to segregate registered and unregistered refugee, unregistered national, documented and undocumented national. And this is where Pakistan is implementing its illegal foreign repatriation plan. There was a question on what are the guardrails for vulnerable. This I have explained. 16,000 individuals were given temporary exemption based on this vulnerability. Does Pakistan, there was a question, does Pakistan intend to adopt comprehensive national asylum legislation? Pakistan has been a model refugee hosting country for over 40 years despite not signing the Refugee Convention. We have, in fact, set standards of refugee hosting that go beyond Refugee Convention by enabling them into employment, mainstreaming them, opening our schools and hospitals for the refugees. We take these refugees as part of our sacred duty, but at the same time, undocumented, unregistered are not welcome. Asylum legislation, asylum cases are treated on case-to-case basis. So this is pretty much on the leftover from cluster one. Thank you very

much.

Thank you very much, Ambassador. And now I'd like to invite Mr. Ahsan from the delegation who will be sharing information on the national minimum wage pursuant to the queries and information that was requested, and also on labor standards. So if I could just ask you to briefly touch upon this. Thank you.

There was a question on the minimum wage. So I would like to state that the Federation sets a minimum wage for the Islamabad Capital Territory and the Federal Sphere, and the provinces have in practice converged on or above it. But that is not a national minimum wage, and since the 18th Amendment, it could not be. The competence is provincial. What makes the provincial rates coherent rather than arbitrary is that every board is tripartite, with employers and workers sitting alongside government, and the process draws on independent work. Then there was a question on the figure the distinguished member cites for young people neither studying nor working. Our own Labour Force Survey measures youth employment at 12.9% for those aged 15 to 24. A measure of those is not in employment. Education or training is a wider one, and will always return a larger number, because it counts everyone outside all three categories. And in Pakistan, that category is overwhelmingly young women who are outside the labor force altogether, rather than young men who cannot find work. The National Youth Policy, Employment Policy of 2025. carries three targets for 2030: absorbing every new entrant to the labor market, raising women's participation to 35%, and 10% annual growth in youth-led enterprise. Our National Training Commission has also trained over 2,064 264,000 young people since 2018, and Punjab's Technical Education Authority has enrolled almost 178,000, more than half of them women, which is the number I would ask the committee to watch, because that is the one that moves the figure the member has quoted. Moving on, then there was a question on where the labour standards sit at the sub-national level. They do, and the committee is right to ask whether that fragments the flow. It does not, and the reason is structural. Ratification of international labor standards is a federal act, and the reporting obligation to the ILO remains federal, while the legislation is provincial. That is not theoretical. The federal review of the Industrial Relations Act was legally vetted against Conventions 87 and 98 before being put to the provinces, and the Punjab Labor Code was prepared with the ILO's technical assistance. Devolution moved the pen, it did not move the standard. Lastly, there was a question on housing. I'll be very brief on this. The policy was issued in August 2026, which addresses a deficit of 10 to 13 million units. On informal settlement, it reflects the Committee's on jurisprudence on forced eviction.

Apologies to the speaker. Could the interpreters kindly request him to slow down for interpretation purposes? Thank you.

Households.

Yes, sorry.

Lastly, there was a question on housing. So I would like to start off by saying that the policy issued in August 2026 addresses a deficit of 10 to 13 million units. On informal settlements, it reflects this committee's own jurisprudence on forced evictions, upgrading in place rather than eviction, ownership rights for long-term residents. and reserve units for female-headed households, persons with disabilities, and the displaced. On finance, the Prime Minister's Apna Ghar program is in motion, which provides low markup, long-term housing finance for eligible first-time home buyers. That's all from my end. Thank you, General.

Thank you very much. And in cluster three yesterday and the follow-up questions that we had, of course, many of the questions surrounded child marriages and forced conversions through marriage, and, of course, the gender-based violence convictions. and conviction rate for rape and gender protection. And so I'd now like to invite Mr. Abdul Khaliq Sheikh, so if you could share information on this. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So there was mention of a challenge on Child Marriage Restraint Act before the Federal Shariat Court. Yes, that's true. There have been a couple of petitions before the Federal Shariat Court challenging the Islamabad law and Punjab law. But the positive side is that the Federal Shariat Court has already given a judgment in past on this. The judgment was in the case of Azhar versus Province of Sindh, and it was held that this is an administrative matter, the age of marriage, it's not a religious issue. So we are hoping that once these pending petitions are decided, there will be positive outcome and we will clear through this challenge. At the same time, it shows that we work under challenges and still we move ahead and implementation of the articles of the covenant. The other issue on forced conversion, criminalization particularly, and through forced marriages. So under Pakistan Penal Code, section 365B, kidnapping a woman to compel for marriage is a very serious offense. And there are other sections like section 361 of PPC and section 364A, which will apply. If a minor has been taken from the custody of guardian, and most importantly, the recent Child Marriage Restraint Act in Balochistan, Sindh, which was already done in 2013, and ICT and Punjab, except KP, are very useful for dealing with forced conversions for the purposes of marriages, because the consent would be is valid only after 18 years of age. The third issue was about gender-based violence convictions. I would say that's a serious challenge because if you look at the cases of gender-based violence in Pakistan, we have seen pretty good improvement in reporting of cases because the helplines have been very active and So there are different stages, like reporting, investigation, prosecution, and trial. So the most challenging part is trial, because we have shown improvement in terms of more and more cases are being reported and investigated. So what we have done is recently there was a high-powered committee by functional committee of the Senate. through which very practical suggestions have been put forward for enhancing chances of convictions in genuine cases, and helplines and proactive reporting of police centers. And again, a very important development is women police stations where the victims are more confident to report. For instance, in province of Punjab, province of Balochistan, which is just 6% of population of Pakistan, in less than two years, the women police stations have been increased from one to five. And in all provinces now, we have specialized units dealing with the gender-based violence and rape cases. If you look at the numbers of convictions, we have seen improvement in sin in last few years from 5% to 22%. And these are the figures compiled by an independent legal aid society in Karachi. The figures are not very encouraging for convictions in Punjab. and other provinces, but we are very seriously working on this, and judges, prosecutors, and police officers are being trained. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Now, I'd like to invite Dr. Arif to share information on the queries that were raised on drug policy and health, and of course, just to add that we've also seen and we have applied the international human rights guidelines on drug policy. So please do share the information pertaining to this. Thank you.

The health related questions and drug policy. I would just like to respond one other question which was asked yesterday about the shelter homes, how many shelter homes are in Pakistan. Currently 48 purpose-built Women protection centers are functional across the country, and we have set a target under our strategic roadmap to enhance these centers up to 65 in year 2028. And similarly, at district level, crisis centers are also functional. These are specialized crisis centers to deal with the cases of sexual abuse and under the anti-rape law. And other initiative has been taken by the Ministry of Human Rights in collaboration with Legal Aid Society and UNFPA that we have launched a benchbook for the assistance of judges of gender-based violence courts. Another initiative was to designate special courts to treat with the gender-based violence, and now in Pakistan, 184 specialized courts are working across the country. And that bench book have been launched to give them assistance so that they may decide in the light of precedents set by the superior courts. And the Supreme Court has also endorsed and reviewed that book. That was the initiative. And the other important question was that the health care expenditure had been reduced. Technically, it has not been reduced. Rather, if we calculate on year-on-year basis, it has been increased up to 100%. We are spending 927 billion rupees as envisaged in last year budget. The technical difference is that there are two streams of budget expenditure or allocation of budget. One is on the recurrent side, which we call the regular budget, and other is the PSDB, which is the development part. Like if a new hospital has to be established, that will fall under the PSDB. And if once it has been established, infrastructure is there, then this budget is transferred to the regular side, and that is divided among different heads. So technically, we have increased it. Similarly, another initiative which has reduced the burden of regular budget is that Pakistan Pakistan has taken initiative to introduce universal health coverage. Now, Sehat Sahulat cards have been introduced. Any individual, any citizen of Pakistan now can avail the healthcare facility through any private hospital which is registered with that scheme up to 1 million rupees. Now, the burden has also been reduced on the public sector hospitals and dispensaries. And similarly, specialized healthcare units have also been established across Pakistan, like liver transplant hospitals in Sindh and in Punjab. Similarly, cardiology hospitals which are very much specialized. kidney transplant hospitals, which are very specialized, and cancer hospitals. Like the Government of Punjab has taken initiative to establish three more cancer hospitals to deal with the patients of cancer, which was much demanded. So technically, we have increased the spending on health care system. The other question is related to Given public health care expenditure, shortage of doctors, yes. As I have already mentioned, Pakistan almost meet the ratio of population set by the WHO, that how many doctors should be for the population. We meet even at Islamabad capital territory. When we reviewed the gender parity report, we surpassed the required threshold, particularly for lady doctors. And secondly, as I have mentioned that now we have introduced the universal health coverage, they have the health cards. So the private hospitals do provide these facilities, and most of the time, the data of private hospitals, doctors is not reflected in the documents, and we will do consider it that in reporting or in data dissemination, that part should also be reflected to mitigate such kind of anomalies. And the other is formal genital mutilation practices. Here, this is our considered opinion that in Pakistan, no such case has been reported or ever considered that such kind of practices are in Pakistan. regarding genital mutilations and etc. Such kind of malpractices have never been heard in Pakistan. And the other important question was to take the epidemics measures against the like dengue or malaria. and other diseases. Pakistan has immunization program, which is nationally and internationally recognized, and there is a committee of donors under the Ministry of Health, which do consider such things, immunization programs. And similarly, it is noted internationally that how Pakistan countered the issue of dengue. Now, dengue is no more a threat for the community. We have adopted preventive measures, and there are teams which regularly conduct inspections at workplaces, at homes, and they give their feedback. Awareness campaigns are launched regularly. So now it is a controllable epidemic in Pakistan. Similarly, we have witnessed very robust interventions to with the COVID-19 and specialized control room was established, and so no cases have been reported regarding COVID-19 as well. The other question relates to policies, legislation through evidence-based, all human rights-based approaches. Yes, this is very much important questions. Pakistan introduced Health Vision 2016-2025. It has been reviewed by Ministry of Human Rights and provincial human rights departments. whether these are aligned with the human rights approach or not, and we have given the input, and now we can claim that our sectoral policies are aligned with human rights approach. We have introduced a paradigm shift from welfare and medical model to human rights approach model, not only in this health policy, our Vision 2025, in all sectoral work plans. So human rights approaches are there, and now the institution consider it right of every citizen that he or she should have equal access to health service delivery. And the other question was regarding to drug policies. Currently, National Anti-Narcotics Policy of 2019 is invoked in Pakistan, and they have three main pillars. One is the prevention, then is the interdiction, and the third one is rehabilitation. So three-pronged strategies have been adopted. Again, this is very much human rights-based approach, and we ensured it, and the Ministry of Human Rights is one of the partners, implementing partners with given objectives. That is to ensure the sterility between a victim and accused. This was very much important. So now in Pakistan, the law enforcement agencies dealing with the drug cases are sensitized that they have to differentiate whether a drug peddler is an addict or a transporter. If he is a victim, he is taken to the rehabilitation centers. And courts take lenient view, the investigators take lenient view that they are the victims, not the accused. Similarly, some instances have also been reported that women and children were used by the drug peddler as couriers. When it was brought into the notice of the court concerned, Now, there are several cases where the law enforcement agencies reflected in their reports that they were innocent and they were trapped. So we witnessed a significant reduction in such cases as well. The other important feature was the international narrative on drug offenses. That was to abolish the death penalty. and to adopt the reformatory approach. So Pakistan welcomed this international initiative, and we also met with the OCHR Commissioner in 2025, a delegation led by our Honorable Federal Minister, and this point was also discussed. Pakistan well appreciated such initiatives by the United Nations Concerned Committees and Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights. And we now abolished the death penalty from Narcotics Substances Act to align it with human rights approaches adopted at global level. And the other aspect is what measures are being taken to reduce drug-related harms, particularly among women, children, and prisoners, yes. To improve the conditions of prisoners is a topmost agenda of the government as well as judiciary. Islamabad High Court passed an order to review all laws and manuals related to prisons, and a task force was also established headed by Federal Minister for Human Rights. and including all relevant stakeholders, they deliberated on the concerns raised by the national stakeholders and international stakeholders, keeping in view all international protocols like Nelson Mandela Rules, Bangkok Rules, so they were due considered and Ministry of Human Rights and even the Honorable Head of Delegation also was very pertinent on this issue, and we conducted several seminars, several conferences, participated in international forums as well, in collaboration with the Justice Pakistan Project. They were very instrumental to take this initiative and support the government of Pakistan. And our concerned quarters like Legal Aid and Justice Authority were also sensitized to have pro bono lawyers on the panels so that they may rigorously take this issue. Now, the working conditions as well as the living conditions of prisons have been improved, particularly in the province of Sindh, that have introduced tremendous initiatives. followed by Punjab, and similarly, there was issue of doctors in Balochistan, and with due interventions of Ministry of Human Rights, now they have provided the doctors, and 12 doctors were nominated in the district jails of Balochistan. So, Pakistan is on track dealing with the drug-related issues and accused.

Thank you, Dr. Arif. If I could just briefly ask you, very briefly, maybe perhaps just in a minute, if you could share the stunting, because that was another issue that was raised with regards to child stunting, as well as the measures taken to increase the birth registration. So, that sort of then covers everything.

Infant and young children nutrition programs have been launched, which expanded for infants and young child feeding intervention, breastfeeding promotion, and community level nutrition services. Multiple micronutrient supplementation has progressed from pilot introduction to scale up in 33 high burden districts through public internal care services and the lady health worker programs. Similarly, wheat flour fortification with iron and folic acid, edible oil and ghee fortification with vitamin A and D, and universal salt iodination have been scaled up across the country, including all provinces. Similarly, vitamin A supplementation for children and micronutrient interventions for pregnant women continued through routine health performance and campaigns at primary, secondary, and tertiary level hospitals. Policy advocacy, public awareness campaigns, and provincial mayors supported breastfeeding promotion and implementation of breastfeeding protection legislation. These interventions reflect the vision's emphasis on the first 1,000 days of life, the prevention of micronutrient deficiencies and the delivery of nutrition service through routine health care platform. Similarly, the WEN 2025 priorities have been carried forward through strategies and action plans addressing maternal nutrition, adolescent nutrition, and anemia. But Pakistan also introduced Maternal Nutrition Strategy 2022 to 2027, which is in practice, which aims to protect and promote diets, services, and practices supporting the nutrition, health, and well-being of women, particularly pregnant and breastfeeding women. Multiple micronutrient supplementation is a core intervention with a target of reaching 50 percent of women with MMS by the end of 2027. The National Adolescent Nutrition Strategy has also been launched. supported by provincial roadmaps and operational planning, seeks to improve the health and well-being of adolescent girls and boys through a multi-sectoral approach that promotes healthy dietary practices, access to essential nutrients, and nutrition education. Similarly, Pakistan Anemia Reduction Action Plan 2025-23 is also in vogue. which prioritizes reducing anemia among adolescent girls, pregnant women, and breastfeeding women. Its measures include uninterrupted access to micronutrient interventions, including MMS, iron, and folic acid, and weekly iron and folic acid supplementation. And under this strategy, campaigns have also been launched to outreach the schools and colleges. Multi-sectoral coordination and accountability have also been ensured under these strategies that the issue of stunting and malnutrition could be addressed vehemently. And I think birth registration, yes, this was a critical issue. And there was low tendency getting the registration at the time of birth. Then a special committee was constituted by the government of Pakistan and all stakeholders, including NADRA, which is the premier registration authority of Pakistan, then provincial governments, particularly the representative of local government, was called for. And now That has been tremendously increased, and around 33% increase have been reported. Now it is mandatory for all parents, and some interventions include the reduction of fee or fee waiver for the birth registrations to encourage the parents to introduce the birth registration. Now, FC's in the 2nd initiative was to use the digital gadgets to provide that access at home services. Now, any individual can use the NADRA app and get registered, her or his child, though it has been made easier, and we expect that we will reach, we will cross the figure of 70% registration in coming years. Now, the data show that it has been reached up to 60 or 67%. Thank you so much.

And one lastly, if you've got the financial debt to GDP ratio. if you've got some information on that.

In yesterday's responses, yes, it is mentioned that 2.7% have been allocated, but I have already explained that indirect interventions are also there. So practically, technically, the budget has been increased. And taxation, particularly new regimes have been introduced in the taxation to collect more taxes, and liberty and leverage has also been given to the provincial governments so they can collect now the taxation in their domains, and all the provinces have established now the provincial revenue authorities, and we are expecting that currently Their contribution is 20%, but we expect that in five years or in a decade, it can be raised up to 40 or 45%. Thank you.

I thank the distinguished delegation of Pakistan for their responses to the issues raised in the Cluster 3 and the remaining outstanding issues which were pending under the other clusters. The floor is now open for follow-up questions in the cluster 3. Yes, Mr. Winfall.

First, let me thank the delegation for Really having given answers to all the questions, at least I was looking and following. It's really excellent and very precise and condensed. Thanks really a lot. I would like to, I have three points to follow up, maybe, or I didn't understand, maybe, or gathered all the information. Maybe the first is still on your Control of Narcotic Substances Act from 2023. welcomed it yesterday, also particularly the end of the death penalty. And, uh, I think, um, my interest would be, do you have really done, um, a review on human rights policies and public health impacts of the federal and provincial narcotic laws? I think that was envisaged, and if this has happened, and when probably that can be, um, expected. And I had forgotten, because I was already too long yesterday to questions, I would like to come back on health issues. The one would be, maybe you can explain to the in which way to you intend to decriminalize abortion, or at minimum, explicitly include exceptions for rape or incest, and maybe also discuss a bit how is, uh, how to prevent female feticides or infanticides. That would be of interest. And lastly, I would like to come back to the issue of hunger, and, uh, um, I see the Benazir nutrition program is extremely important, I see all what you have done and reported on, uh, food fortification and your interest. Still, I- I looked into this IPC, this phase classification scheme published by FAO and other UN agencies, and We still have, uh, 7.5 million people, um, yeah, living, um, in, uh, class three and which would be crisis and 1.5 million or 1.25 million, which is an, uh, extreme emergency situation. Yeah, so there's still a big pocket, and I'd like to just hear a bit more where is that maybe and what you envisage, uh, because these are high levels in this phase classification, which is done regularly. just to understand a bit more what is behind that. Yeah, thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Wenfeng. Yes, Ms. Pei-Ji Chen for the next question, please. Yes. Go ahead.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a question under cluster 3.

Sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a question under cluster three regarding housing. From the report and also the introduction that I know the affordable housing and the low-cost.

Housing projects, you have that too.

So those projects helped many people and their families. My question is, Is such housing policy the long-term projects or interim arrangements?

How many households have been provided with such housing so far?

And what is the proportion of households with total housing demand?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Chen. I now give the floor to Mr. Fyurov-Vaskin for Follow-up question is

Muchas gracias.

Thank you very much. In the national report, as well as in the replies to the list of issues, many strategies are listed there. And these strategies seek to have a positive impact on different dimensions in the area of poverty. So I would like to ask the delegation.

I'm sorry, can you repeat your question?

I am not getting the interpretation right now. Please, would you mind?

English is available in channel 2 for the delegation.

Thank you very much. I will repeat my statement and the question. Could I double check, are you able to get the interpretation, which is available on channel 2 in English? Yes? Great. So my question is, in the national report, as well as in the reply to the list of issues.

Sir, I’m very sorry, but we’re just waiting for a second for everyone in the delegation to find the right channel.

Yeah, no problem.

Yeah, no problem, no problem. So I’ll do that.

Thank you very much.

So, regarding the responses to the list of issues and also in the State National.

Report, we have seen many public policies and programs aiming to address multiple dimensions of poverty. And I would like to ask the.

State Party if there is a specific measurement of multidimensional poverty and also a mainstream public policy that.

That addresses poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Vascon. I now give the floor to Mrs. Julieta Rossi. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair and the delegation. Thank you for all the information that you have shared with us this morning. I had some questions for you, and the first of these relates to something we talked about yesterday, Amendment 26 of the Constitution, which includes the right to a safe environment in Article 9A. You also spoke about some rulings asking for environmental impact reports. My question for the delegation is whether you have adopted or plan adopting a regulatory legal framework, a general one, that would flesh out this right, that would develop and protect this right in keeping with international standards, and also bearing in mind the procedural and substantive guarantees. One of them is prior effective consultation with communities that can be potentially affected by impacts in the environment. One of the core guarantees, I would say, in environmental impact reports. And I would also like to say, because maybe it was not talked about yesterday, the legal framework to protect indigenous peoples and the regulation for obtaining a free, prior, and informed consent before the development of various projects that might have an impact on them. My next question is on the light of mining and minerals in Baluchistan 2025. According to some information we have received, this law has created some controversy, given that it does not contemplate free, prior, and informed consent mechanisms, nor does it make it compulsory when hiring local labor or distributing royalties to the various resource producers. So, could you please offer comments on this and explain how you will be bolstering the provincial legislation on mining in order to include these safeguards? And then two additional short questions. One is on maternal mortality. According to information we have received, what we have heard, maternal mortality has dropped. However, it continues to be high in this state when compared, for example, to other states, which is why we'd like to ask what measures are being taken to step up its reduction by improving access to maternal obstetric health, reproductive health, including abortion, safe abortion services in areas where it's allegedly protected and allowed by the legislation, and also assistance and protection postpartum. And could you please provide updated broken down information on maternal mortality and deaths related to unsafe abortions? We also know from information that we have read that there are regional disparities. when we look at the figures of maternal mortality? And then lastly, on the drug policy, where there are plans to reduce harm, we know that some of these programs have been developed, but we want to know whether you are thinking expanding the reach of these programs regionally. Thank you.

These are the follow-up questions. The delegation now has 20 minutes to respond to these questions.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd like to invite Mr. Essen to share information on the issues that are raised and the follow-up questions regarding housing and the affordable housing. So please go ahead.

So the question had a couple of parts. So on affordable housing, the policy works on supply before subsidy. It directs the identification of public land for affordable projects and applies non-utilization charges to land held idle, so that land moves into construction rather than into speculation. It requires building regulations and planning standards to be revised so that the upgrading settlements become cost effective for low income groups, rather than uneconomic. It removes the minimum house size, which has long priced the smallest households out of a legal dwelling, and it permits up to a quarter of the floor space of low cost house to be used for home based commercial activity. So the house can also be a livelihood. Every low cost and affordable project must reserve units for female headed households, for instance. persons with disabilities and the displaced, and it directs development towards intermediate and secondary towns, not only the major cities. On the long-term part of the question that you asked, the policy is explicit that housing finance in Pakistan has been too short to be useful. It provides for fixed-term lending at 10, 20, and 30 years, for banks to allocate at least 10% of the private sector credit to housing and construction, for real estate investment trusts to be in place by the end of this year, And for markup subsidy to return, targeted strictly at verified low-income households. It is carried by a three-year national action plan with a midterm review after a couple of years, five years, and a full review every 10, and a report on housing finance disbursement, which will be published annually. A 30-year mortgage is what turns a house from a purchase into something an ordinary family can actually afford. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And now I'd like to invite Mr. Abdul Khaliq Sheikh on issues that were raised with regards to land acquisition, mines and minerals, royalties, and other associated matters on the local employment as well in Balochistan. So the floor is yours, sir.

Thank you very much. As you would recollect, within the peculiarities of Pakistan, given our federal structure, the subjects are divided between the provinces and the federation. So, mines and minerals is actually a provincial subject, with only exception that certain areas are jointly owned. So, the primary ownership of the mines and minerals licensing and regulation lies with the provinces. In certain areas like petroleum and natural gas and anything related to nuclear, those would be administered jointly by the federation and the provinces. Generally about the consent, You see, as I said yesterday, the Constitution of Pakistan guarantees right to property and protection of property and life and liberty under Article 23, 24, and Article 9. But the procedure for any kind of activity involves proper consultation and how it is done I'll explain in a while, but before that, the legal framework. In Balochistan, as you, because you referred to Balochistan, we have BMR rules 2002, and it is up to the province that they can change their laws. But as far as the consent process is concerned, it is being done according to the local customs and their legislative enactments. For instance, in KP, we have public meetings. So through public meetings, the land revenue department and keeping view their local customs, those issues are debated. And as some of the areas like In petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear, the federation is involved. So for instance, Oil and Gas Development Corporation Pakistan, it negotiates with the tribal communities in Balochistan. That's why they are, the tribal communities are involved in the royalty, in royalties and compensation. And there's condition of CSR initiatives on the companies which are involved here. So, although there's no stand-alone free, prior, informed consent institute in Pakistan, but we have a consultation process. We have general legislation which covers it, and we have a procedure where the resources and those projects are undertaken by by not only involving the community, but most importantly, involving the district administration and local governments and provincial governments. And this was done in Rekodak also. That's why most of the development is being carried out in Chaghi area. drinking water has been a serious issue in Chaghi area. Most of you may not be familiar with the terrain. Balochistan, with 6% of population, is larger than probably most of the European countries, maybe each one of them. So through this project now, through CSR activities, and through the royalties taken by the provinces, as mentioned yesterday, the province Balochistan is now at par with the federation in terms of the royalty. We have 50% revenue goes to Barrick Gold and 25% to the federation and 25% to the province. So this is how we deal with the issues of hearings at local level, local meetings, community involvement in the development, and most importantly, the employment. So now these projects in Balochistan have generated a lot of employment, although, for instance, in terms of Rekodak, the production will be ready in a couple of years, but still the revenues have started coming to the province of Balochistan. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Now I'd like to invite Ambassador Tayyab Andrabi for follow-up questions that were raised with regards to the legal framework and giving effect to these and the community engagement, and of course, concerning climate change. But before I do so, I'd just like to state that, you know, with the Constitution of Pakistan and the 26th Amendment, and of course, including this right, And this is very important for the people of Pakistan to enjoy this right of a clean, safe, and green environment. Of course, if their right is breached, they have a mechanism through Article 199. They can approach the High Court if they feel that their right has been breached. And equally, it's for any person. So of course, it broadens any person that's present in Pakistan, not just citizens, per se. And equally, they could take this to the Federal Constitutional Court directly as well, if there has been an alleged breach of this right, whether it's in the community of the indigenous people. So, Ambassador Tayeb, the floor is yours.

Thank you, sir. Thank you for giving me the floor. As regards the environmental protection, particularly with respect to projects related pre-assessment. First of all, there's the 26th Amendment, Article 9A was inserted in the Constitution, entitling every person to a clean, healthy environment. It's a justiciable fundamental right. And the Supreme Court also weighed itself on the matter in Shehla Zia case, where it reinforced in later Asghar Leghari case, Mehr Badshah versus Government of KP case, and the court had made a concrete judicial application of Article 9A. Section 12 of the Environmental Protection Act, 1997 sets out when an initial environment examination, IEE, or full EIA is required. Projects are classified into two schedules with public hearings and regulatory oversight. The schedule sits in the 2000 EIA regulation, and IEE regulation, initial environment examination and full EIA. After the 18th Amendment in 1997, act was adopted by each province with minor change, so then it devolved into the province. Environment moved mostly entirely to the province. The result is that we have patchworks both at the federal and provincial level. Mining specific laws, particularly the KP Mines and Mineral Act 2025, classifies mineral into 10 categories, and each having its own environmental protection in a sense of both IEE and EIA. There's a human rights angle to it, right to healthy environment, right to health and life, participation and access to information, business and human rights, labor rights, remedies, so essentially encompassing all. On a second question about, particularly, I think the question was raised about housing in Sindh, the impact of what has been done, particularly in the Sindh province with respect to reconstruction of houses. So I have this to report that, particularly in the Sindh, out of approximately 2.1 million homes destroyed in 2022 flood, 600,000 have been rebuilt, while reconstruction of remaining houses continues under the relevant housing initiative, land entitlements are provided exclusively to women who have been assisted in opening bank accounts. So these were your support housing recovery and strengthened women participation in the reconstruction process. Similarly, Punjab, 50,000 flood affected person, you know, there was rehabilitation of similar, and it's there and on. in our report as well, but I wish to answer specifically the question relating to SIV. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ambassador Tahir Nurebi. Now I'd like to invite Dr. Arif to cover follow-up questions and share information on maternal morality, abortion, equally on drug policy and plans to reduce harm and poverty. So if you could very concisely cover all of these four topics and the follow-up questions that we have in this. Thank you.

Thank you, Honorable Head of Delegation. I appreciate Honorable Committee members' acknowledgment that Pakistan has reduced and made progress. Yes, the question was whether we still need interventions to match the regional and global levels. Yes, of course, Pakistan is very adamant to further work on it. Like, currently, we have reduced up to 49% as the United Nations Maternal Mortality Estimation Interagency Group's estimates show a reduction from 306 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2002, 155 in 2023, representing an overall decline of approximately 49% in Pakistan. The latest direct national survey estimates also authenticate this thing. And how we can further improve the situation is that improved coverage of maternal health services have been introduced by Pakistan. With regards again, improvements in the use of maternal health services compared with 2018-19. For instance, prenatal consultations have been increased from 84% to 88%. 4% progress is shown. Similarly, home deliveries declined from 30% to 16%, almost 100% decline. There was a tendency in Pakistan of home deliveries sometimes through midwives or sometimes quacks are there, but now it has been reduced to 16%, almost 100% progress. Then skilled birth attendants have reached the threshold of 84%. Postnatal consultation increased from 33% to, uh, 44%. These improvements are supported by the integration of maternal and newborn healthcare into primary healthcare, and, uh, EPHS service priorities include. antenatal and postnatal care, skilled birth attendants, midwifery emergency, obstetrics care, timely referral, postpartum family planning, and maternal nutrition. The National Health Support Program provides an additional 432 US dollar million over four years to address health service delivery gaps. Maternal and perinatal death surveillance and response is also being strengthened to support the review of maternal and perinatal deaths and corrective actions. Balochistan enacted the MPDSR Act in 2025, while an ICT MPDSR bill is under legal progress, and a dashboard has also been developed for reporting and monitoring. Additional measures include national guidance on ending preventable maternal mortality, antenatal, intrapartum, and postnatal care, comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights, and the Pakistan Maternal Nutrition Strategy 2022-2027 is also being implemented. For the legal abortion and post-abortion care, there is a legal framework governing abortion, which is contained in Sections 338 and 338A A, B, and C of the Pakistan Penal Code, abortion is not absolutely prohibited. Its legality depends on the circumstances as specified in the law. Under the statutory framework where the organs of the fetus have not formed, termination of pregnancy may be undertaken in good faith to save the life of the woman or provide necessary treatment to her. Where the fetal limbs or organs have formed, termination may be undertaken in good faith to save the life of the woman. The penal code prescribes penalties for termination carried out outside the circumstances permitted by law. Post-abortion care and reproductive health services are also available in Pakistan, which are recognized within maternal and reproductive health service delivery. The National Service Delivery Standards for Safe Uterine Evacuation Post-Abortion Care 2018 have been adopted, which provides a service delivery framework, while the EPHS and EWE&NE prioritise include post-abortion care and post-abortion family planning. These services support the clinical management of abortion-related complications. appropriate follow-up and access to family planning integration with the wider maternal health care system facilities, access to reproductive health services within the applicable legal framework. The other question was also related, the part of the question, whether we are reviewing the abortion legislation or not. The existing statutory framework is set out as I referred in the concerned sections, which are the 338 and 338A-B, Pakistan Penal Code. The supplied policy and legislative material identifies measures concerning reproductive health care, safe uterine evacuation. It does not identify a formally approved legislative amendment or any established review process specifying intended to decriminalize abortion or expand the legal grounds for termination. The other question was related to prevention of female foeticide and infanticide. There are legal safeguards available in Pakistan. The prevention of female foeticide and infanticide is addressed through the applicable criminal law and healthcare regulatory frameworks. Under the Pakistan Penal Code, termination of pregnancy outside the circumstances permitted by law is subject to the prescribed penalties. provincial and territorial healthcare regulatory authorities oversee healthcare facilities and diagnostic services, including ultrasound services. The regulatory framework is relevant to preventing the misuse of diagnostic services for unlawful sex-selective practices. For that purpose, healthcare commissions are functional across the provinces, including Islamabad Capital Territory, and they also have the offices and outreach at divisional and district levels. And the other initiative, recent initiative taken by Ministry of Human Rights is that we are also considering to have an integrated database system regarding the femicide cases. That is also important, even in context of suicide, sometimes femicides are taken as suicide. So these angles are also being studied, and for that purpose, we have engaged the UN partners and also the other international partners. And we believe that these issues will be addressed. And with regard to no harm policy under the Narcotics Substances Act, yes, of course, it is a considered opinion of the Government of Pakistan that we have to act on the no harm policy wherever the law permits. And similarly, the doctors under the medical code, they also, and the psychologists and psychiatrists, they also follow the APA code of no harm. And we are adamant that we will be continue to work under the UN guidelines. And for instance, In 2025, in January 2025, an international training program was introduced by OHCHR, Justice Project Pakistan, and other international partners to train the judges, and 64 judges attended that course. And similarly, 100 plus participants participated through online to benefit from these training programs. And we believe that we will be continue this practice in future as well with our international partners and United Nations partners. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, of course, we being cognizant of the time as well, but equally, just one last comment on the last point that you've made, Dr. Arifa, the implementation and following the international human rights guidelines and drug policy, of course, this event that we had back in January 2025, reimagining justice. So this is, of course, we have been rolling this out and we're taking a human rights based approach in such situations. So thank you.

I thank the distinguished delegation of Pakistan for their replies to the follow-up questions in the cluster three, and we shall now turn to cluster four, and I shall invite the cluster leader for cluster four, Mr. Siri Nantasud, to put his questions.

Good morning. Thank you, Chair, and the delegation for the answers provided thus far. My task is to engage with the Pakistani delegation on cluster four, focusing primarily on Article 13 on the right of education and Article 15 on the right to culture. I will raise material and salient issues stemming from the state report, the reply to our list of issues, and our interaction with CSOs and UN agencies. On Article 13, there are six key points. The first point pertains to political commitment and resource allocation. According to the UNDP 2025 Human Development Report, Pakistan ranks 168 out of 193 countries with an HDI score of 0.544, placing the country in the low human development category. Of our concern is the massive out-of-school children data. Over 25 to 26 million school-aged children, roughly 36% of children aged 5 to 16, are out of school, giving Pakistan the second largest out-of-school population globally. Rural areas account for 74% of these children. The Committee also notes with grave concern the ratio of education budget to GDP, which amounts to 0.4%, while the State Party pledges to invest up to 4%. The question is, therefore, how the Pakistani government is rectifying this low level of human development and education investment. Please indicate clear policy trajectory and targets, as well as challenges. We would like to inquire specifically about the pathway for the national policy to prioritize education investment. The second point is on security in schools. We are concerned by the incidence of attacks. on and demolition of schools by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, or the Pakistani Taliban group, especially in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and North Waziristan. While this point was already raised in our previous concluding observation, new attacks have emerged, and we seek clarity from the State Party on the measures that will be put in place to ensure safety for teachers and students in education facilities in border and rural areas. The third point is on inequality in education, particularly in the southwestern province of Balochistan, which has the lowest literacy rate of 42% compared with the national average of 61%. Over 3 million children are out of school. The province's out-of-school rate, 47%, is the highest nationally. Net adjusted primary enrollment is 31.8%. and 22.1% of government schools are officially non-functional. The Committee is also alarmed by the documented pattern of enforced disappearance of university students, which affects Baloch enrolment in tertiary education nationally. While the Pakistani constitution guarantees the free and compulsory education for children aged 5 to 16, the provision requires passage of enabling legislation in the provincial level. This guarantee is not made concrete in Balochistan owing to the absence of a provincial legislation. We reiterate the principle that a state party cannot invoke internal structure of government, such as devolution, to evade its covenant obligations. Thus, we would like the state party to indicate whether the national government has a framework that mandates or otherwise incentivizes provincial governments to prioritize education in their jurisdiction. We are also worried by reports that only limited number of schools are based on accessible equipment for students with disabilities. We would like to highlight that accessibility is a basic premise for inclusive education. On the fourth point, we would like to readdress commercialization of education. In 2017, the committee issued a broad observation on education privatization. Nearly a decade has passed, and we still receive information on the same concern. The Pakistan Education Statistics 2022-2023, released by the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, indicates that nearly 10,400 schools, amounting to 3% of schools in the country, operate under public-private partnerships. We would like to ask the State Party whether a policy or regulatory framework exists or will be developed to require the relevant public agencies whose education mission will be privatized to undertake assessment of the impact that the privatized education would have on students. Additionally, with the privatized structure already in place for many years, has the State Party conducted the effectiveness assessment of that delivery? especially enrollment and literacy. Civic education is our fifth point. From the statistics of the same ministry, there are 64,417 religious schools that are managed by the private sector. We would like to ask the State Party whether and when a systematic oversight or regulatory framework will be placed on these madaris to ensure that their curricula correspond with the job market for the students as well as foster freedom of expression and understanding of human rights and diversity. The sixth and last point on education relates to discrimination in primary and tertiary education on Afghan students. There are reports indicating that Afghan students, Afghan children aged 14 to 17 and youth aged 18 to 24 have cited the lack of documentation as an obstacle to their enrollment in Pakistan, We would like to reiterate that Article 13 of the Covenant mandates State Parties to provide primary education to all, irrespective of their immigration and documentation status. We have also received reports that the State Party is in the process of deporting more than 1,000 Afghans, including over 300 women, who are currently studying medicine across Pakistan. We would like to ascertain whether this is the case and how the State Party will guarantee the equal right of Afghan students to undertake their tertiary education in line with Article 13 that enshrines equal accessibility to higher education for all. On Article 15, we note with satisfaction the significant narrowing of the gender gap in mobile internet. However, concerns remain, and I will raise only two points pertaining to the right to culture. The first one pertains to false information offense, digital rights, and tech-facilitated gender-based violence. The 2025 amendment of the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 gave the National Cybercrime Investigation Agency exclusive investigative powers, created a new regulator, and a new offense that criminalizes false or fake information that could cause fear, panic, or disorder or unrest. The offense that is based on undefined terms has created misuse and overage and caused dissent to be classified as false information. The office has also been used against journalists and human rights activists, including women. This new law poses risks not only to freedom of expression, but also the right to culture, when a cultural expression can be arbitrarily suppressed and penalized. We would like to seek the view from the State Party on this point. Second point, marginalization of native languages. The Committee would like the State Party to clarify whether native languages are incorporated in the formal education system. We receive reports of incidents where cultural and political expression associated with local identities, such as the Barok, has faced media censorship and criminalization under counter-terrorism law. Baloch scholars and teachers are targeted and killed by death squads and forced into silence. The case of a renowned Brahui literary scholar, Professor Hayat, who was shot dead in May this year, is illustrative. He was put on the proscribed persons list under the Anti-Terrorism Act prior to his assassination. The Committee would like to receive clarification from the State Party if minorities are being profiled and targeted. These are the salient points pertaining cluster four. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Nontasoot. The distinguished delegation now has 30 minutes to respond to the questions raised by Mr. Nontasoot. Thank you.

Thank you very much to the Honorable member of this very oldest committee. And the questions that have been raised in cluster four, equally, I think there's been, we weren't able to address one of the questions that were raised by Senora Perez as well, which was out-of-school children. And it's a very pertinent question that has now come up again in cluster four. So I think I'd like to invite Mr. Abdul Khaliq Sheikh to not only share the statistics, but equally the measures that the government has taken, the Prime Minister has taken by declaring the education emergency and what measures we have actually taken so as to reduce the number of out-of-school children in Pakistan and across provinces and across country. So please, the floor is yours, sir.

Thank you very much. Let me begin with this acknowledgement that out-of-school children is a serious issue for us, and I will not claim that we are very happy with the the figures that we look at, because having more than 20 million children out of school is something that we actually worry about. The only thing we can be a little bit satisfied with is that we have shown tremendous progress in the last two to three years. Even in Balochistan, the out of school children has declined from 69% to 45%, and Sindh from 47% to 39%, in Punjab from 32 to 21%. And particularly the girls out of school ratio has declined from, the number has declined in terms of percentage from 42 to 31. And one thing that I must mention here is As it was mentioned by honorable member of the committee that Pakistan did not fare well on the index of gender gap parity, although we got five positions better than last year, we came from 148 to 143 this year. But one thing that brought us some relief and a little bit better position this year, is the gender gap parity in terms of attainment of education. Because the girl children's enrollment in school has tremendously increased. And now, for instance, the RS score on the WEF report was 91.7%, which is almost close to this, what they call score one. So this is something that we can share with you with some satisfaction and this show that we, at least, our trajectory is on the right path, although this is work in process and there's a lot to be done because there are future generations, I would not say much about that. The other thing, the very act of the federal government, particularly the prime minister, declaring this a national emergency, a subject which, particularly after the 18th Amendment, is almost exclusive domain of provinces. Also, we have federal education ministry also because of this. This show that the federal government, along with the provincial governments, they are serious about it. And there are so many programs which have been initiated in the provinces through district governments and through the local governments, which are now bringing results. There was a question about the private schools also and public-private partnership. I'll briefly touch that also. You see, we are actually encouraging any movement towards setting up more schools at the moment, because, and anything for incentives and quality of education. What happens actually In most of the schools now, there's a policy, as it was asked for kind of regulation policies we have, we call it adopt a school. And their education foundations, if you take, for example, SIN, there's SIN National Education Foundation. And under this adopt a school, the private sector are mostly, they are not private making organizations because this is not-for-profit. Those who want to return to the society, they adopt schools and mostly the local community leaders or retired people or those who come from, return to Pakistan from abroad, and they adopt schools and the government hands over schools to them. So this is a public private partnership. Yes, private schools, we have a lot of growth in private universities and schools. But this is helping us in many ways. Although some of the schools are very expensive and elitist schools, but most of the schools are available in the neighborhood, small schools, which are being now replaced with the adopt a school. the government is handing over schools. So overall, I would say that we are moving in right direction for reducing the number of out of school children, for attainment of education for girls, particularly at the level of primary enrollment, and providing them, because most of the dropout ratio is at the secondary and higher school level. So we are investing now a lot in the education level at the school level so that we can reduce the dropout as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Sheikh. Now I'd like to invite Ms. Nayab Ali that will be covering topics on the legal and institutional framework for the regulation of madrasas as in cluster four. Group Nontan Suth had asked, not just on the registration and mainstreaming of the madrasas, but also provincial measures to prevent radicalization, equally countering hate material and extremist narratives, protecting schools from the use and attack by the armed groups such as TTP, the terrorist groups, and increasing school enrollment, attendance, and retention, improving the quality of education as in Article 13. and 14 of the Covenant, and preventing harassment and discrimination against minority students. So the floor is yours, Nayab Ali. Thank you.

Very much, Honorable Head of Delegation. I will be covering most of the question that has been asked in cluster four. So Pakistan regards madrasa as an important part of its education landscape. They serve millions of children, many from low-income families. The government approach rests on four pillars: registration and regulations, mainstreaming of curriculum and skills, action against institution linked to proscribed organization, and protection of all educational institutions from violence and misuse. These measures are taken under the Constitution, the National Action Plan, and federal and provincial laws. The registration and regulation of madrasa is a standing point of National Action Plan. To give it effect, the federal government established the Directorate General of Religious Education under the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training in 2020. to register madrasa and support their mainstreaming. In December 2024, the President signed a Societies Registration Amendment Act 2024 together with an accompanying ordinance to settle the legal basis of madrasa registration. The Directorate General of Religious Education is recognized as the oversight body. The 18,600 madrasas already registered with it across federation are treated as legally registered, and new madrasas may register through a streamlined process. Societies Registration Amendment Bill 2025, passed by the Senate on 13 June 2025, adds security safeguards Madrasa that remain under their own boards and registered under the Security Registration Act 1860 must first obtain clearance from the Deputy Commissioner and District Security Committee. In Islamabad Capital Territory, registration is handled by the Directorate of Religious Education. 17,738 madrasas with Approximately 2.2 million enrolled students were registered with the Directorate General of Religious Education. To widen students' learning and opportunities, the Directorate General of Religious Education has provided 1,196 trained teachers of contemporary subjects to 598 madrasas and textbooks to 1,154,000 students. It has introduced a national curriculum of Pakistan in 1,162 madrasas and is working with the madrasa boards towards a uniform curriculum and standardized examination. Registered madrasas continue to receive teacher on stipend for modern subjects. Madrasa students are also being linked to the labor market. National Vocational Training Council has trained 2,219 madrasa student in technical and vocational skill under the Prime Minister Youth Skill Development Program. And federal government has target 5,000 madrasas youth for skill training. In Punjab, education department has taken control of 208 madrasas linked to proscribed organization. The province enforce the national curriculum, which include lessons on humanity, tolerance, and child rights. In Sindh, province has more than 40,000 religious educational institutions, serving over 5.2 million students, and is developing new textbooks for them. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province has adopted the national curriculum, introduced monitoring of madrasas, and through its center of excellence on countering violent extremism, conduct training and seminars for teachers, clerics, and youth. In Balochistan province is gradually implementing the national curriculum with support from Balochistan Educational Endowment Fund. Now covering the second part of your question, the federal government approved the interfaith harmony policy and strategy of religious tolerance on 20, uh, on 12 February 2025. The National Ulama and Mashay Council has proposed a code of ethics for religious scholars. The web evaluation cell of the Ministry of Religious Affair has reported 76,893 links containing hate content to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority for blocking by 21st July 2026. Punjab has relinquished 67 publications and CDs declared as hate material on the recommendation of Muttahida Ulama Board. Now, covering the component of your question that was focusing on protecting schools from use and attack by armed group, and also the protection, how our governments are providing protection to the educational institutions. So in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the authorities monitored educational institutions to prevent the misuse of school building by armed groups. After an attack on a school bus in May 2025, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa issue a province-wide security advisory for all schools. It requires a security assessment. for every institution's monitoring of entry and exit points, trained security staff, CCTV surveillance, safety awareness session for students, and emergency alert mechanism and evacuation plans. Where militants have attacked schools, the state has acted quickly to restore education. In May 2024, after militant destroyed a school, In Sheva, North Waziristan, the Prime Minister ordered its immediate reconstruction at government expenses and directed that attacker be brought to justice. The school was rebuilt and girls returned to their classes within a week. Police investigations are open to identify and prosecute the attackers. When two government primary schools in Mir Ali, North Waziristan, were attacked in December 2025, police opened an investigation to identify those responsible and district administration reinforced security for schools in the area, stating that attacks on educational institutions are unacceptable. Thank you, Hydro delegation.

Thank you very much. I'd like to invite Mr. Ahsan, who will be speaking with regards to the cultural aspect, the mother languages in education, and including the profiling and targeting of minorities. The floor is yours.

So with regards to the mother languages in education in Pakistan, The constitution protects linguistic diversity directly. Article 28 guarantees any section of citizens with a distinct language, script, or culture, the right to preserve and promote it. Article 251 allows each provincial assembly to provide by law for the teaching, promotion, and use of a provincial language alongside the national language. Education is a provincial subject, and the provinces have legislated. St. under its 1972 act. Under this act, Sindhi is a compulsory subject from class 4 to class 11. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Promotion of Regional Languages Authority Act provides for teaching Pashto, Hindko, Saraiki, Khawar, and Kohistani. In 2023, the province directed both government and private schools to teach them. And when talking about Balochistan, its 2014 act makes mother languages, including Balochi, Brahui, and Pashto, a compulsory subject up to class 5. It also requires the government to provide textbooks and train teachers. We do not claim the task is complete. Textbooks and trained teachers for the smaller languages remain the main gap, and that is where provincial effort is now concentrated. With regards to the profiling and targeting of minorities, let us be very clear, there's no law, policy, or practice of profiling minorities in Pakistan. Articles 20, 25, 26, 27. as well as 36, guarantee freedom of religion, equality before the law, non-discrimination and access to public places and in public service, and the protection of minorities. Parliament has now created a dedicated institution, the National Commission for Minorities Act 2025, signed into law in December 25, establishes a statutory commission. It will inquire into violations of minorities' rights, make recommendations to the government, and report to the parliament. A 5% quota in public employment is protected by the Supreme Court, which has held that unfilled minority posts must be carried forward and cannot be given to other candidates. In its 2014 judgment, the Supreme Court also directed a dedicated police force to protect places of worship. And in August 23, Islamabad police set up a minority protection unit. Where individuals target minorities, including through misuse of the law, the state's response is to prosecute them. We do not deny that such incidents do not occur. The test of the state is how it responds, and we are strengthening that response. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hess. And now I'd like to invite Ambassador Tharun Ravi on one of the very interesting and important questions that was asked with regards to the medical students of the Afghan origin or refugees, and generally speaking, the Afghan refugee children and students in general. So the floor is yours, sir.

Thank you, sir. I think it will be proper to contextualize the situation in a continuum of the last 40 years, and let's not be carried away by the news that emerged now. And what the continuation of the last 40 years, in fact, 46 years since this Afghan conflict started, is that Pakistan has been hosting refugees and Afghan nationals and have mainstreamed them in all our education, health, and employment sector. And in that sense, this present situation is actually a correction of some of the policies and its adverse effects, in which not just the registered refugees, but also some of the undocumented Afghan nationals also seeped into the territory. of Pakistan. With this, the particular reference to the recent situation with respect to Afghan refugees, yes, there were some notices of sort of de-enrollment from the institutions. But as we have been saying, as has been a common theme, that the judicial system in Pakistan is providing remedy, and this has been the common theme in most of our replies. So, with respect to these Afghan students, particularly the medical students, the Peshawar High Court stepped up, and on 5th October, it provided a judgment whereby it stopped deportation of a number of Afghan students, particularly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It allowed them to continue their studies while the cases proceed and subject to being no other reason to discontinue their studies. A bulk of those Afghan students' plight has been registered with reference to KP. Lahore High Court also stepped up on 11 September 2026. The Lahore High Court suspended directive issued by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council, and this directive was also related to some of the Afghan nationals to return to Afghanistan because their documentation was incomplete. However, the court's interim relief allowed affected students to continue their studies, and the cumulative number of the two judgments, the beneficiaries of the two judgments, ran into hundreds. I would also like to draw attention to the committee members to the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 9 September 2026. where we categorically stated that the relevant authorities are processing a foreign student's visa extension application under existing rule, and we also clarified that foreign national without visa would obviously be liable to deportation, but those with valid visa, particularly with education visas, need not fear deportation. With respect to overall, I mean, this was particularly for the medical students question was raised, but we have several mechanisms, including access to public school, university, and scholarships, particularly reserved seats, for both higher and primary education. Pakistan's education framework provides for free and compulsory education for children aged 5 to 16 of Afghan refugees, and this is what I would like to underscore that these are for registered Afghan refugees, this policy continues. So, provincial education laws and plans have also included this provision. Similarly, our Alama Iqbal Scholarship for higher education for Afghan nationals continue, and under this, we report the amount of students benefiting from this is now close to 5,000. Education program for refugees, children and girls is also being pursued by the UNHCR under their RAHA program, and UNHCR reports that it provides program continues recent 57,000 refugee children in a number of refugee villages. Similarly, reserved seats, university seats, and access to higher education continues. The government reported 20 public and private universities have confirmed a number of seats almost up to 2,000. So this is continuing. There's also a DAFI scholarship program, which supports eligible Afghan refugee students in recognizing this scholarship, I understand, is Funded by Germany and administered by UNHCR. So, so with this, the, the, the there's no intention of the government to, to sort of deny these, these Afghan nationals the, the education in, in, in, in Pakistan. However, with respect to undocumented, with respect to students who do not have completed their sort of paperwork, with respect to proper student visas, action against those would continue, but it would not affect those legal students and the bulk of the students. The news emanating with respect to the medical college, that issue has been addressed by the courts. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ambassador Nwabi. I’d now like to invite Mr. Abdul Khalek Sheikh, who will be sharing information on the issues that was raised and the information was requested by the Honourable Member of this Committee with regards to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act, as well as the National Cybercrime Investigation Agency. So the floor is yours, sir.

Thank you very much. Obviously, everybody would agree that there's need for enacting legislation on cybercrimes and having a specialized agency that deals with cybercrime. That's why the National Cybercrime Agency has been created in Pakistan, rightly so. I think it would be pertinent to ask that how does that agency operate and how those provisions of Pakistan Electronic Crimes Act are applied, and how to ensure that those are not being used for political dissent or any kind of political victimization or score. So that is a right question that we need to address. If we look at the overall picture of what kind of cases are reported and investigated by the National Cybercrime Agency, most of those are not initiated by the government, barring a few. Those are on complaints of individuals who have been victims of cyberbullying or child abuse. online grooming, or even so many other offenses being conducted in cyberspace now. And we have also come up with the tech-facilitated gender-based violence strategy under the umbrella of Ministry of Human Rights, which the government has launched very recently. So I was saying that if you look at how the National Cybercrime Agency operates and how the sections, relevant sections of the law are being applied, so it's mostly to protect the victims or potential victims. And through this, we have collaboration with Meta for what we call take it down. So we take down the obscene and offensive posts also through Meta. Out of 157,000 complaints received by a national cybercrime agency in 2025, there's a proper way to filter those, and after that filter, the cases are made out and investigated and prosecuted. And there's oversight. Another important question would be, is there any review or oversight? So there's oversight, internal oversight by senior officers. And for certain sections of law, a senior officer has to investigate the case, and there has to be a sanction of prosecution by the government. And safeguards for false implication through use of forensic verifications, and this has been further developed by judgments of the superior courts where they have put restrictions on using digital evidence against the accused. So this is how I would say that this law, a very, I say with confidence, a very important, a good law, and which has proper safeguards also under the procedural laws. And The purpose is not to use it against human right defenders, rather to protect innocent citizens and journalists also. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for sharing that very useful information for the members of this committee. I'd now like to invite Dr. Arif, and he will be, because there were Information has been requested on the public-private partnership, on schools, and also incentivizing the provincial governments, increasing the school-going children, and all of these issues, accessibility of school for children with disabilities, and equally, privatization of education, policy-related issues of persons with disabilities. Dr. Arif, the floor is yours.

I would clarify that, as already the honourable head of delegation has mentioned, that education and bringing back the out-of-school children is a top priority of the Government of Pakistan. To achieve this target and objectives of the strategy, Pakistan has adopted a three-pronged strategy. One is to monitor and strengthen the formal education system, to bring back the out of school children. The second pillar is the public private partnership. That is very much important. So government of Pakistan at all level is encouraging private sector to come forward to join the hands of government in promoting the quality education across the country. And for that purpose, I would just quote example of province of Punjab. Now they are going to outsource public sector schools to the private sector who have relevant experience in running the schools and on the subsidized rate. The school fee will be paid by the government, but the schools will be run by the private sector. through Punjab Education Foundation. The other key pillar is introduction of a tier of schools by autonomous bodies such as National Commission for Development that works at national level and introduce non-formal school education system, particularly in those remote areas where the formal education institutions are probably not possible sometimes. And the third pillar of that approach is the non-formal education school setups at community level. These are governed under the literacy and non-formal education. All the four provinces have established these departments, and under this scheme, at community level, a well-educated girl or woman is hired. And he established the school near his house or any building given by the community, and children are brought in that school to acquaint them with education, particularly the street children. So, we expect a better result due to these policies and interventions together with the private sector. Similarly, public-private sector schemes are being also regulated. And the lacunas are being set under the rules and frameworks and policies, and access and easy access is being ensured so that maximum number of private sector can join in this initiative. The other question was related to accessibility of education and schools for the children with disability. Again, as I earlier responded to other questions that now human rights approach are adopted in all sectoral policies, and same is the case with national education policy developed by Government of Pakistan. And the sectoral plan developed by the provincial governments, they are going to ensure the inclusive approach that children with disabilities are there. The policy reflects the key actions and interventions to be taken to secure the accessibility and safety of children with disability. So for that purpose, the Constitution is already very explicit under the Article 25A that free and compulsory education will be provided to each and every child under the age of 16. And similarly, the federal government has adopted the approach of provincial decentralization and target setting following the 18th Amendment in the Constitution of Pakistan, which mandates the provinces to develop their own strategic plans and policies. Similarly, the national education policy formalized at national level reflects the inclusive approach designed to systematically phase out educational synergies, it established the benchmark of bringing 50% of children with disabilities into formal education environments and rendering half of all existing school structures fully accessible, except in severe cases. If with mild disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, the government encourages the parents, the children, and teachers to enroll such children in the regular schools. But otherwise, the special education school system framework is also functional across the country. If we take instances of provincial interventions, the Punjab Special Education Policy categorizes disabilities into four functional tiers. It mandates the integration of students with mild to moderate needs directly into mainstream public classrooms while preserving specialized centers for severe and profound needs. This is supported legally by the Punjab Right to Education for Children with Disabilities Act 2022. I have just quoted the example of Punjab, otherwise all four provinces follow the same policies as well as at Islamabad Capital Territory level. Similarly, the Government of Sindh has focused on specialized developmental challenges by establishing the Centre for Autism Rehabilitation and Training, a major public institution providing entirely free educational occupational, behavioral, and speech therapies. Practical and material interventions include provision of transport and subsidies. The state provides institutional specialized free transport services to commute students safely. This is paired with free textbooks, specialized Braille learning materials, and direct monthly student stipends. to offset thousand educational costs. So priorities are also given in the stipend schemes run by the federal government as well as the provincial governments to the children with disabilities. Similarly, the teacher training program and capacity building programs are part of such approaches to bridge the policy to practice gap. Pakistan has deployed master trainers through provincial departments to train thousands of mainstream public school teachers. on label-free inclusive education and differentiated classroom management. This has also been acknowledged in the reports of UNESCO. Socioeconomic safety nets and other important initiatives to bring the children with disabilities in the mainstreaming. Federal sports, where the Benazir Income Support Program offers unconditional financial assistance to highly vulnerable families caring for children with disabilities, while Pakistan Betul Mal distributes assistive devices like wheelchairs and hearing aids to secure physical mobility. In addition to these interventions, Ministry of Human Rights, in support of the WHO, as well as UN Women, are trying to outreach such women as well who are caring for the children with disabilities to give them assistive technologies directly. And another framework is being also established for the caregivers of such children. Modernizing data system for inclusion is also important. Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training instituted a standardized data standardization framework, which we call the DSF. This framework integrates the internationally recognized Washington Group Chart set questions directly into Pakistan's annual school census. And it was also adopted in the general census of 2023. Washington set of questions were part of that. And we have developed several indicators under the guidelines of these set of questions, such as seeing, hearing, and walking, ensuring that localized school budgets can be calculated based on the actual prevalence of disabled students within specific school clusters, while challenges in rural infrastructure and societal stigma persist. Pakistan continues to systematically adopt its infrastructure, tracking systems, and legal protections to move from mere physical placement to true functional inclusion. So with these strategies and with these approaches, we expect that further progress will be shown to mainstream such children with disabilities.

Thank you.

I thank the distinguished delegation for their replies to the questions put in the cluster 4. The floor is now open for follow-up questions. Yes, Mr. Mantaş, please.

Thank you, Chair, and I appreciate the responses by the delegation. I think we are here to, first of all, recognize problems. and talk about progress that has to be made. I'd like to react on three points. The first one is perhaps the core of the issues, is devolution. I'd like to address this to the delegation and ask whether or not there is, at the national level, a KPI set for provincial government and local governments, whether or not they will increase or reduce the number of out-of-school children within the set time frame. At the moment, what I've heard, what we have heard, is that allocation of budget is done on a headcount at the provincial level. So whether or not there will be punitive measures on the reverse, that if local government cannot achieve the out-of-school ratio within the set time frame, the allocation will be reversed. That's the first point. So that point pertains to really the certainty and commitment of the federal and local government. The second issue has to do with the madrasas schools. I recognize that there is now an ordinance dating from 2024, but registered institutions only number a fraction of the total number of madrasas that are in operation. So what we are concerned with are issues of quality, radicalization and accessibility, whether the ordinance that has been put in place really operational, take into account these points to prevent radicalization of the students, to promote accessibility, and to promote enrollment. The third point has to do with the PPP structure. I have cited the number of 16,000 schools at the moment. It seems from the response provided by the delegation that this number will rise because the usage of PPP structure to mainstream education. What we like to ask is that within the passing years from 2017 to now, there have been PPP structure already in place. Has the government conducted really the assessment to provide assurance of how effective it has been in terms of promoting quality, accessibility, and enrollment of students? Whether PPP schools really promote students into the job market on a wider scale. These are the follow-up questions, and I think there is a technical question that has arisen from Secretariat, and if I may, just want to ascertain whether the One information, and this pertains to, I think, the cluster one and cluster three, but let me ask anyway, uh, just to technical affirmation about the Balochistan Mines and Minerals Act 2025, whether or not, uh, it has relocated the control over Balochistan's mineral resources. away from the local communities and provincial entities to the federal level via the Mineral Investment Facilitation Authority. We would like to ascertain that if this is the case, so that we can reflect it accurately. Thank you very much.

Yes, Mrs. Julietta Rosines.

Thank you very much again, once again, to the delegation for the information provided. I have two questions. One relates to the discrimination on scheduled castes or Dalits in education. This Committee had recommended in 2017 that you produce a study on scheduled castes and Dalits with relevant statistical data and measures to combat stigmatization and prejudice, so as to combat the persistence of discrimination and de facto segregation, particularly when it comes to access to education, but also employment. Could you please provide us with information on that? My second question relates to comprehensive sex education. Is it incorporated as a subject, a stand-alone subject, perhaps? Could you tell us about how it is incorporated into the curriculum of primary and secondary schools in the various provinces in the country? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Rossi. These would be the follow-up questions. In view of the time constraint, I shall kindly request the delegation if could frame the answers within the next 15 minutes at most. Thank you. Yes.

Thank you very much for these follow-up questions, and thank you, Honorable Chair. Of course, on one point, before I actually ask Dr. Arif to cover and sort of, you know, address the follow-up questions that have been raised, I'd like to address the public-private partnership structure as well, and of course, the quality and the access accessibility and the job prospects since then. Of course, you know, since the Prime Minister declared an education emergency right after coming into power and, you know, becoming the Prime Minister, of course, this has been declared for the next five years, but equally, some very incredible steps have been taken specifically with regards to the Danish school project by the Prime Minister that's very close and near and dear to his heart. And of course, we've had orphans and very destitute students, children, that have actually studied there and then they've actually gone on to fulfill government jobs and really high level government jobs as well. And this is all really well documented where they've actually benefited greatly from the Danish schools and the Danish universities as well. So, yeah, that was just one point. So if you could share the information requested by the honorable member of this committee on the follow-up questions. Thank you.

Was related to development of KPIs to monitor the public-private sector, particularly to ensure the quality of education. Yes, there is a framework available. And the question also relates to the situation after devolution to the provinces. Again, the constitution of Pakistan provides a robust mechanism to share responsibilities among the federal government and provincial units, like Council of Common Interest is there, like National Economic Council is there when it is the matter of distribution of funds. The one example is when the government of Pakistan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, declared an education emergency and consensus was developed that contributions will also be taken from the provinces as well as by the federal government. And for the monitoring of system, yes, there are two specialized forums that are available. One is the Education Foundations, which not only These are autonomous sort of bodies. They not only provide the funds for establishing the schools and educational interventions, they also monitor to ensure the accountability. And similarly, the private schools regulatory authorities are also functional. They conduct regular inspections, and they conduct performance audit as well, in addition to the financial audit. So on the basis of that performance audit, it is decided whether to continue or whether to give them further guidelines to improve the quality or to suspend the agreement. So these are there, and it's a continuous process. Similarly, incentive schemes are also there for the teachers, even if they are working in the private schools. So there are various schemes, monitoring centers, meritorious certificates, and recognition of their contribution towards promoting the education. And the other question relates to the madrasa regulations as well as with regard to the quality of education, and de-radicalization of elements if they have any sort of radicalization. Yes, government of Pakistan, particularly the provinces, have established the centers of excellence to counter violent extremism. They are functional across the four provinces, even including the Gilgit-Baltistan territory. and mostly the educationists have been hired to conduct researches, to outreach the university institutions, including madrasas, schools, and the practitioners. And I would also like to apprise the honorable committee that the Ministry of Human Rights is also in close liaison with these centers of excellence. We have recently conducted a meeting with all these centers of excellence, and we are going to have a national roadmap as well. How can we address such issues in more robust ways, including other stakeholders? The other part of question was regarding the discrimination against scheduled caste, Dalit community, particularly with regard to their access to education. Let me clear here that there is no discrimination in Pakistan on the basis of sex, and Article 25 is also clear, similarly not on the basis of race or ethnicity. They are part and parcel of Pakistan, and they are treated equal citizens of Pakistan, and the schools are open for each and every person, not only the citizen of Pakistan, but every child who is in Pakistan for the time being. If you go through the sectoral plan developed by education sectoral plans, developed by the provincial governments, even particularly in KPK, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sectoral plan, and Balochistan sectoral plan, they have also given due place to the Afghan children who belong to the refugee families. Similarly, the Dalit community is more concentrated in the province of Sindh, and the Sindh province has allocated hefty money to secure the minorities in terms of their freedom to profess their religion, to protect their worship places, similarly, to mainstream them through education and technical vocational training programs. So it is open for all. Yes, the second part is the stigmatization. We believe that over the period, there have been even elected members of the parliament in the Senate from these communities, and they have always appreciated government's initiatives, and there is no discrimination at all. If there is any at societal level, there are district human rights offices. in the province of Sindh, and there are district human rights committees everywhere in each district headed by deputy commissioner. So all these stakeholders are sit together to address such issues. And the other question was related to sex education. The government institutions follow the ethics and like we have the compulsory subject of Islamic studies and ethics. So under these subjects, teachers are very much trained to sensitize the children, particularly the adolescent girls and boys in respective schools. So this aspect is covered, and if we see in a holistic manner, the curriculum developed by Pakistani schools. Thank you so much.

Thank you, and I think that pretty much covers everything. If we haven't covered any, if there's something still that's pending, we'll still cover it, of course. Sorry, actually, my apologies. We did have something that we did. Yes, there's mines and minerals from Balochistan that we still have to cover, and there's one or two other things as well. So my apologies, because I was also cognizant of the time. So please, on the madrasas, the registration of madrasas, and also Balochistan mines and minerals, I'd like to invite Abduh Falek Sheikh, sir. Thank you.

I'll try to be as brief as possible. First of all, the structure for madrasa reforms and mother's registration, because the key questions are, the key steps, i would say, involved are, first, we, what we did was geotagging that we have been doing for quite a few years now and it's completed. We had to actually locate all the mother's in Pakistan, especially after there were concerns of radicalization as raised here. So now, that was done. So, initially, the madrasas were being registered only by the provinces, but now at the federal level, we have a Directorate General of Religious Education, DGRE, under the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training. So, the idea behind this was As the concerns were raised here for the education emergency, that how national policy, national framework, and national government is involved. This is what has been done through this directorate general within the federal education, and that too in the professional training wing of the Ministry of Education at the federal level. And it works in collaboration with the provinces, so the madrasahs are being registered, one. The other part, and there has been a scheme how they get registered. For instance, some of the madrasahs have multiple campuses. They have been given one corporate-style entity registration. The other part was mainstreaming. One issue was their curriculum and exam system. So now we have, like education boards, we have five boards for examination and curriculum of madrasahs. And because there are different sects under Islam, so different madrasahs actually subscribe to a different set of instructions. So those five boards now are operational, so they regulate the syllabus and exams. And most important part was the equivalence model for mainstreaming, because we want to bring them to the mainstream model, so you have to get them some way of transitioning from madrasa schools to, as the honourable member raises this question of providing them means of livelihood, and how this education system is transformed so that they don't actually acquire religious education, they acquire technical education and skills, and they join the mainstream higher education or workforce. Then I move on to Balochistan mines and minerals. There actually was a new legislation in 2025, and there are certain, one school of thought is they would see federal role in it, but I will clarify in a while. Actually, that federal role is only what we call, there's a facilitation role of federal government. It is like Ministry of this, most of the issues that you discussed yesterday and today are actually done by the provinces or the district administration or the local government. So how would it feel if for everything the United Nations treaty bodies have to, or other institutions have to coordinate with the provinces or districts? It's not workable. So in certain issues, for instance, this issue of Bara Gold, as one of the delegates members explained yesterday, that there was litigation and there was a penalty on Pakistan. So we had to find a way out. So now this was not possible for the province alone to do. Supreme Court was involved, federal agencies were involved, and most importantly, foreign office and international government corporations and courts were involved. So in such situation, because we are attracting foreign investment in Pakistan, this is very important for us. So for attracting foreign investment and for entering into the agreements as we did with Barrick Gold, you need facilitation by the federal government. So that is the only part, but it is not under the federal statute. If it had happened under the federal statute, that would have have given more control to federation. Now, this is through a provincial government's statute passed by the provincial government through their committees and cabinets, and they have right to amend it anytime they want to. So more than interference in the provincial subjects or encroachment or gaining of space, this has given a facilitation rule that to to a very limited extent to the Federation. Thank you very much.

I thank the distinguished delegation for their responses to the follow-up questions. I shall now give the floor to the country rapporteur, Ms. Giulietta Rossi, for concluding remarks.

Thank you very much, Chairman. I am starting my closing remarks by thanking the distinguished delegation of Pakistan for the comprehensive information furnished in these two days of dialogue and for the additional information which will be sent to us in writing. I'm also grateful to civil society organizations for the very useful information provided in writing and in the meetings held here in Geneva, and other national stakeholders, in particular the National Commission on Human Rights from Pakistan. In particular, I would like to thank the head of delegation, barrister Aqil Malik, and the officials representing the various ministries and departments for their willingness and the constructive spirit in replying to the various questions raised, both the working group as well as other members of the committee. I would also highlight the State Party's willingness to collaborate not only with this committee, but also with other committees, as highlighted in the participation in the review processes held recently as part of the various universal human rights treaty body system. The information has been substantive and very valuable, although some relevant topics differ from the information received by civil society and other stakeholders involved in the process. and information and recent statements made by other United Nations special procedures. In any event, the information gathered and the exchange held will enable us to assess the steps taken by the State Party to effectively comply with the rights under the Covenant. We were able to hear at first hand and learn about some of relevant processes. in implementing economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as environmental rights, and also the significant challenges that the country faces, as well as the significant gaps between legislative progress and their effective implementation, and that international obligations will need to be looked at. We would point out that a number of the recommendations issued by this committee in 2017 were not sufficiently taken into account or implemented. Specifically, this constructive dialogue aims to identify and shed a light on the structural challenges and difficulties that the country faces to properly comply with the provisions of the Covenant. And the task of this Committee to point out to States Parties a roadmap for the proper implementation. And thus, the exchange does not end here. Rather, it is ongoing, and we hope it will be in the same spirit and in the same willingness. As you know, we will adopt in the coming days a number of recommendations, which we hope will be duly taken into account and implemented on the basis of good faith by Pakistan. In the concluding observations, we will flag three very specific recommendations, which we believe to be of a priority, and we would ask for them to be complied with in a two-year timeline. I'd like to conclude by thanking the Chair for the wonderful steering of this constructive dialogue. Thank you to the Secretariat of the Committee for the valuable support provided to prepare for the country review, particularly Anders Melvers. And also, I'd like to thank the interpreters who carry out excellent, high-quality work, which enable fluent communication between all of us. And thank you very much indeed to the members of the Committee for their interest and active participation in the exchange with the Government. Special thanks to my colleagues from the Working Group, Mr. Bouzid, Michael Windfuhr, and Sinta Sood, who undertook wonderful preparation work with the comprehensive and relevant questions raised to we push forward with this dialogue. Thank you very much indeed to one and all for your attention, and I wish you a safe journey back home.

Thank you, Mrs. Rossi. I shall now kindly request His Excellency, the Head of Delegation, to make his closing remarks.

Thank you very much, Honorable Chair, distinguished Chair, honorable members of the committee, As we come to the end of our dialogue, I want to begin where the Committee began, with thanks on behalf of myself and my delegation for very patiently listening to our submissions and for raising very important follow-up questions throughout our engagement here over the period of these last two days. My delegation has not engaged in this review to be congratulated, but to seek the Committee’s counsel and understanding. We have listened carefully to the Committee’s concern on the gaps between constitutional guarantees and their realisation, on the gaps between constitutional guarantees and their realisation and the resource envelope for social spending, on the informal economy, on minority protections, and on climate change and other associated matters. We do not dispute that there are gaps. I set them out myself in our opening statement, and our dialogue has touched upon in the limited time that has been available to us, the Government’s efforts to bridge them. I have the privilege and honour to lead Pakistan’s delegation at this review and offer four observations on our dialogue in that capacity. Firstly, on maximum available resources, Article 2 is two-sided. It refers to resources available to a State Party and those available through international assistance. cooperation. With the mounting needs, growing challenges, and declining official development assistance, the twin standard is integral for assessing State Parties' efforts for progressive realization of governance rights. Secondly, Pakistan is a federal state in which health, education, many social services have been devolved to the provincial governments to bring service delivery closer to our people and tailored to the local context. Our federal structure is testament to the diversity of our country and its large population. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Thirdly, Pakistan’s trajectory is that of the progressive realization of the Covenant’s rights. Despite our constraints and challenges, we have traveled a considerable distance since Pakistan’s initial review. Much remains to be done, but the most important and useful assessment is one that measures where we stand today against where we began our journey. and not just vis-à-vis abstract benchmarks that do not reflect local context and priorities amidst scarce resources. Fourthly, access to water is essential to the enjoyment of all of the human rights, including those that are enshrined in the Covenant, such as the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. In this context, India's brazen disregard for binding, treaty obligations under the Indus Water Treaty is a grave threat to the rights of our people. It undermines international law when it is most needed. In the same spirit of transparency, let me also outline our approach towards the outcomes of this review. We will convene multi-stakeholder consultations on the Committee’s concluding observations at both the federal and the provincial levels to assess and implement the recommendations. The Ministry of Human Rights will continue its very important work as the national mechanism for implementation, reporting and follow-up. Distinguished Chair, very honourable members of this Committee, Pakistan will always promote the indivisibility and interrelatedness of all of the human rights. Economic, social, cultural rights are just as important as civil and political rights. Since ratifying this Covenant in 2008, Legislation has enabled it, courts have adjudicated upon it, and the government's interventions have sought to strengthen protections where they're most needed. At a time of growing inequalities within and amongst the states, the gap in implementing obligations under the covenant falls most heavily on those with the least. This is often the case in Pakistan, as it is in many other parts of the world. We hope the Committee’s candour and rigour with Pakistan, like for all other State Parties, will help narrow these gaps and pave the way for the full realisation of the economic, social and cultural rights for all of us. Thank you, Danke, Grazie mille, Muchísimas gracias, Shukran, Kapun kap, Merci, Xie xie, Spasiba, Tashakurlar. Thank you very much. I hope that I covered everything.

Thank you, Your Excellency, for these concluding remarks. We are happy to conclude our fruitful exchanges over the broad range of issues which confront Pakistan in its implementation of the economic, social and cultural rights under the Covenant. I must express our deep gratitude and appreciation to the head and members of the distinguished delegation of Pakistan for their active participation and for the expression of their unwavering commitment to the protection of the rights enshrined in our Covenant. We deeply appreciate the constructive and positive spirit which prevailed throughout the proceedings since yesterday, and the discussions have indeed been most enriching. Such a constructive dialogue is no doubt going to provide the Committee with a sound basis to come up with appropriate recommendations in its concluding observations. In accordance with the follow-up procedure, the Committee will identify the three recommendations which require urgent attention and implementation within a time frame of 24 months. I am also very grateful to the members of the Committee, the country rapporteur and members of the Task Force, the Secretariat, in particular Noemi and Anders, for their indispensable support, and to the interpreters and technical staff for their much appreciated assistance. My thanks also go to the civil society organizations and other bodies and institutions which have provided an informative input for the purpose of the present review exercise. The concluding observations will, following their adoption by the Committee, be communicated to the Permanent Mission by Friday, 13 November, and will be made available publicly on Monday, 16 November. I would end by wishing Your Excellency, the head of the delegation, and all members of the distinguished delegation of Pakistan a safe return home. With this, I declare closed the meeting.

Thank you.