 We are recording this meeting as well so that you can share this recording with your teams who are not able to join us today and cascade that training. We also invite those of you who are on social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, to join us on our conversation online by using the hashtags that you see on your screen, hashtag child rights, and also you can tag us at girlsinspire and at call4d. And you can also use the hashtag and child marriage. Without further ado, I'd like to pass on the microphone to Mrs. Frances Ferreira, who is a senior advisor for the Women and Girls Initiative at the Commonwealth of Learning. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are. It is quite a pleasure for us to welcome you to our second webinar for 2017. Today we are very pleased to be joined by our guest speaker from Pakistan, Mr. Aniz Jalani. Very much because of the fact that he is the founding member of one of our partners, Park. So it is very, very pleasing to have Mr. Jalani with us. He may not need any introduction in Pakistan, but for the rest of the meeting who do not know Mr. Jalani, he is a lawyer by profession, he is also an author, and I have already said the founding member of Spark, he has a Juris Doctor from the University of Florida and an Amelit from the University of Aberdeen, an MSC from this university's name I cannot pronounce, but it is in Pakistan. But what is very significant about Mr. Jalani is the fact that he has written extensively on the issues of child labour and youth rights, including authoring the book Child Labour, The Legal Aspects, Christ Unheard, Juvenile Justice in Pakistan, Child Rights in Pakistan, a book focused on child rights with a special emphasis on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Mr. Jalani is indeed the right person to talk to us about this issue. As we focus on ending or contributing towards ending, we will not be able to end it ourselves, but we will make a small difference in the phenomenon of child marriage. He is the person to speak to us on this topic because a child that is forced because of the fact that she is underage to get married, that indeed is violating their child's rights. So anything that we do outside what the child's rights are is indeed not protecting their child, but violating their child's rights. So Mr. Jalani is a prolific writer on this topic. He speaks out on this, and we are very happy that he has agreed, despite his very busy schedule, to join us this evening from Islamabad and to speak to us at this. I will now immediately hand over the mic to Mr. Jalani. We will make you a presenter, but Cherise will take over to give you the floor and tell you what will now happen, Anise. Very, very welcome. Thank you very much, Frances, and thank you, Anise. Anise, we have changed and provided you with a presenter on GoToMeeting. You would have received a notification on your screen to give permission to share your screen with us. It says tab to share content. So I have three boxes. So which box should I tab? What boxes do you have? I have file, whiteboard, and website. Okay, I think it's... Would you have your presentation on your desktop? Would you have it open on your screen? Let me just click on file. Okay, we can try that. If not, then we can share the presentation from here. It says whiteboard now. It's whiteboard. Let me check. Nope. Okay, Anise. What we will do is that we will just share this... Yeah, so what you can do is you can put the slide and I'll tell you each time when to change the slide. Okay. That sounds good. We will do that. So we can go to the next slide. I'm thankful to Commonwealth of Learning for giving me this chance and hello to Frances, Tina, and Sharif, and to all my colleagues and my friends from Spark. I will be more interested in the questions rather than giving a lecture because I think most of you will be knowing about the subject and many of the things which I will be talking about probably all of you will know. So it will be good to have an interactive session, but I have 20 slides. How much time would I have, Sharif? It would be 20 minutes, Anise, after we get the questions and answers. Okay. So as you can see from the slide, by the way, most of these pictures, they are taken from our Spark's centers for street children. But so this is, Spark had just started this new center and this picture, some of these pictures, especially this one, for instance, these are taken from our new center. As you can see from the slide that child protection is to protect the rights of all children against violence and abuse, exploitation, neglect, and discrimination. And as you can see, when we are talking of these things, the violence, it could be physical, psychological, emotional, socio-cultural, and gender-based. So as you can see, the protection that we are seeking is against a wide variety of influences that can hurt a child. So we are talking of a very comprehensive subject and we, all of us, we wish the child to be protected from all these ills. Next slide, please. Starting with the UN convention on the rights of the child, which I maybe call in CRC, it's sometimes called the Magna Carta of child rights, or it can be like a bill of rights. And generally speaking, it's said that the rights, all the rights given in the CRC, they can be divided into the protection, development, and participation categories. So, and then in this slide and in the next one, what I have tried to do is I have tried to categorize these, some of these articles. Can you go to the previous slide, please? Yeah, thank you. Starting with non-discrimination, I need not explain what we mean by discrimination, but we are saying that there should be no discrimination against children on any grounds. So it's any form of discrimination. And this basically means that we are here to promote child rights and without discrimination. Discrimination could be on grounds of gender. It could be on grounds of religion, nationality, national origin. And there is another ground which is seldom talked about, but from my experience, I think it's a very important ground, which is your class origin. Lots of times what we come across is that children, they are discriminated against, and not just children, even adults, they are discriminated against on the basis of their origin. They're okay if your parents or your father, he has been not so well off as some of the others, so the society, it will discriminate against you. The second important point is, and this is something which I think all child activists they should keep in mind, which is that the best interests of the child should always be upheld. So when we are dealing with any issue relating to children, what we should always keep in mind is the best interests of the child. So I think this is a standard which should all the child rights activists, they should be asking themselves that an action which they take, will this action be promoting the best interests of the child? And this last sentence, if you look under the best interests of the child, the last sentence under that is very important that sometimes the families, they are unable to take good care of their children, and if the family is dysfunctional or because of its inability for whatever reason, then it becomes the obligation of the state to intervene and to provide the child with adequate care. So generally speaking you can say, we will be talking about it in the remaining slides also, but the primary responsibility for looking after children is that of the family. But it's also the duty of the state to keep an eye and intervene if it sees that the family is unable to look after the child properly. Next please. Children is, obviously it pertains to life, it's an important right, and in countries like Pakistan and some of the other developing countries, unfortunately many children they die. Many children under the age of one year they die and the number is running into hundreds of thousands. Many children they die under the age of five, almost half a million children in Pakistan they die each year under the age of five. And lots of times it's happening because of very minor reasons, like clean drinking water. If suppose there is no clean drinking water with children they are given dirty water and children are suffering. So this is an important right and which should be kept in mind. And the last one and as you can see many of the CRC articles they are dealing with this which is protection. And I have already defined protection, so I will not go into it, but if you can look at these articles of the CRC then many aspects of child rights they will be covered by the heading protection. CRC is also responsible for introducing a very new concept which is the child opinion. That prior to the CRC there was not so much talk of the right of participation of children. So it was for the first time that this idea it was introduced and as a consequence now it's almost accepted by all concerned especially child rights activists that children's opinion they should be taken into account and they should have a say in the decisions that affect their lives. And this enables the children to express their views, to discuss issues which consider which they consider important and to also receive information which is relevant to them. So as you can see we are also talking of the right of information of children. The next one it's dealing with right of identity of children that they should have a name, an understanding family relations and I don't know about Canada but many of the children who work in Pakistan you will be surprised to know that they are not called by their names. You know lots of times people they call them by their physical appearance like for instance they may be calling the child fat and so everyone where the child is working will be calling the child fat and not by his name or if the child is short then everybody will be calling him short and not by his name. If the child is dark then people will be calling him by the color of the skin and not by his name. So this is something that child laborers they suffer a lot and this is a very common practice. Next, children are vulnerable. I need not explain this to all of you. They are dependent on their parents. They are immature. They are vulnerable to abuse and so as a result we all have a duty to protect their rights. And again on this slide we are saying more or less the same thing which we said in one of the earlier slides which is that if the primary duty is that of the family to protect their children's rights but if for any reason the family is unable to look after the child properly then it's the responsibility of the state to intervene and to ensure that children are adequately protected. Next please. I have already explained that family is the basic unit. What this slide is apart from saying the same thing is also saying that the state should assist the family in protecting and promoting the rights of children there. Next please. Apart from the family and the state I think the community also has a role to play. And so and I think this is where all of us who are taking part in today's discussion we comment that we also have a role to play and this includes when we are talking of community it includes schools also, institutions, hospitals, police stations and NGOs and civil society generally. It's our job also apart from the family and the state it's our job also to alert the concerned people if we see there is a possibility of child abuse or abuses take place. And people around a child they are especially in a position to help. And the last sentence on this slide is saying that an early action always helps. And it's the best way to protect the child if an early action is taken. And every attempt should be made that the child should stay with the family. So in certain circumstances it may not be feasible but every attempt should be made that the child stays with the family if possible. Next please. Now what is really how can the state help? What is the role of the state? The state it can of course help by having proper laws. So I think this is one of the first steps. And then once you have the proper laws then the next step is to implement and enforce those laws. And then also by establishing proper institutions which are working and which are competent in this field. Next please. Next. It's the job of the state to protect all children. And it should in this regard have proper laws. It should have regulatory measures for protecting children. It should implement child protection systems. It should develop its administrative and institutional capacities. And most importantly this is something which unfortunately is lacking in a country like Pakistan is to create awareness about child rights, about the issues which we have discussed tonight. That awareness need to be created amongst the people, amongst the masses. That children also have rights just like everyone else in the society. Next please. Next. So I think all of us in the civil society it can play an important role in this by disseminating information about the laws, about various institutions which are available to have children. And the state it can also give incentives to protect children from violence and abuse. And it can also strengthen the existing structures if need be. Next please. Next. When we are talking of child protection it also covers child abuse. Abuse need not just be physical although this is what is being shown in the picture but it can be mental, emotional. So this is something again which should be kept in mind that when we are talking of abuse, whether child abuse or other kinds of abuse, it's not just physical abuse, it could be emotional abuse also. And an important factor is the third sentence on the slide which is that most of the time these different kinds of abuses they are not found in isolation. They are usually in combination. For instance, a physically abused child is often emotionally abused as well. A sexually abused child is likely to be neglected also. And age is no more. A child could be abused at any age. So it's not just you may think that our teenage girls are more vulnerable lots of times. A 3-4 year old child can also be sexually abused. Next please. Next. Neglected against something common in poor countries and developing countries. You know, a country like Pakistan where almost two-thirds of our population and Pakistan is a populated country. It consists of almost 120 million people. But almost two-thirds of the people in this country they are poor. They are earning less than $2 a day. So as a result of this, the children of these poor people, they are neglected. They don't get enough to eat. They are not getting education. They are not getting proper education. They are not getting adequate care. And this results in neglect of children. It endangers the physical, mental, spiritual and social development of the child. And it's obviously harmful to the child. Next please. Next. This is not a dramatization. The picture you see on the slide. This is an actual picture. And this person who is beating the child, he is the district education officer in one of the districts in Punjab. And he is beating this child. And fortunately the picture was taken thanks to mobile phones. But this is, I hear to say this, but this is common. The children are beaten in the schools in Pakistan. And it's also very common for people to beat their children at home also. And we should all oppose corporal punishment. We should keep struggling to have proper laws which prohibit corporal punishment. Next please. Next. When we are talking of protection, it also covers child labor. And an important thing about child labor is that it deprives children of their childhood. And it's an obstacle to their development. And lots of times child labor is justified on the grounds that the children are poor. But you should also keep in mind that child labor is also one of the causes of poverty. So it's like a vicious circle that all children who are working, they are poor. But these children, they will remain poor because they are working and they are not going to school. So in order to break this cycle, the state will need to intervene and break the cycle and help the families of these child laborers. And all child laborers, they suffer major physical and psychological problems. And the physical consequences, they need not always be because of the hazardous work. It could be because of the physical abuse, lack of proper nutrition. And most of the time, child laborers will have a very low self-esteem. You can imagine that how a child working in a home will be feeling when all children living in their house, they are going to school and that child instead of going to school is polishing their shoes and washing their clothes. So that child will always have a very low self-esteem. So you are virtually destroying such a child and so we need to oppose child labor in all its forms. Next, please. Next, we label child laborers. We call them beggars, beggars. And because these children, they are poor, they are working, so they are dirty also. And so the labeling assumes an acute form also. And as you can see from the third sentence on the slide that because of this low self-esteem, the negative reaction of the people, the children, they create a distorted perception of their self, which is detrimental to the child's personal development. Next, please. We have been talking of child, but every reference to a child also includes girls. And in a society like Pakistan and maybe in many other countries, boys are given preference over girls. Lots of times girls face more violence than boys and so they need to be especially protected against violence. And we are talking of a phenomenon like child marriage. Most of the time, young girls, they are married at a very early age, which of course results in violence also. A huge number of children, they are employed in people's homes. And most of these children who are working in people's homes, they are girls. And all these children, including girls, they are exploited. And since they are working in homes, so lots of times remain invisible. Next, please. Many times these practices by people and the society, they are defended in the name of customs traditions. But we should all oppose such attitudes and we should try to bring about a change in the society. Like lots of times even if a girl, she wants to marry of her own choice, it will be opposed by the family. Many times the girls, they are killed also in the name of family honour. So these are all practices that should be opposed by the society and the state. Next, please. We should also keep in mind that when talking of protection, we are also talking of children who are in prison. Luckily the number of children in jails in Pakistan presently is not large. But it does not mean that the few children are in conflict with the law. Roughly speaking, almost like 70 to 80,000 children, they are facing trial. They may not be in prisons but they are facing trials. So there are many children who faced police and who are in conflict with that law. And it's very important for the state, for the families, for the community to help these children. Next, please. And lastly, when we are talking of protection, we should also try to keep in mind the rights of children who are victims of natural disasters. Rather, it's floods, earthquakes or any other kind of natural disaster. But children, because they are dependent, they are extremely vulnerable in such situations. And it's our job, the job of the society to help such vulnerable children. And when there is an armed conflict, it's also a situation where children, they should be helped. Thank you. Wow. Thank you very much, Anis, for that wonderful presentation. There's quite a few issues that came up that I wasn't even aware of. So this was indeed a great presentation. I think everybody will agree with me that the presentation served its purpose. We learned a lot. But we did not only learn a lot. There's a lot of challenges ahead of us that we weren't even aware of. Things that we should be conscious of as we continue to do this work that we are doing. Of course, we can't change the world, but whatever small contribution we can make, can make a difference in many, many more years to come from now. Thank you very much, Anis. I'll give the mic back to Cherise, who's facilitating the questions and answers. You wanted to say something, Anis? No, no. Thank you. Thank you very much, Anis, and thank you very much, Frances. Anis, I'd like to add my voice to that presentation, which was really eye-opening for us here. We don't really hear about these challenges in such depth here at the Commonwealth of Learning. So we really appreciate your insight. We'd like to now open the floor for any questions or comments from the meeting. If you have any questions, you can kindly unmute your phone, like clicking on the red button, or you can type in your comments or questions in the chat box on your screen. Mama Jasta, I see that you've got your microphone on. Yes. How are you? Good, Mama Jasta. It's nice to hear your voice. Welcome to the meeting. Thank you very much, and I also commend the presentation in the issues of chat rights and the functions of this conference, which iterate our way. Also, I see the similarities between what we're doing, and the efforts to participate in terms of challenges which we have and which we think should go together to work on it, maybe relieve pain, stress, and psychological tortures to children. I would like to share what we have in Tanzania in regards to child protection policies. And we have always been in national discussion on how to execute the appropriate measures, which would help to make sure that we provide the rights to the children in a wider perspective and in various dimensions of key issues which children face as well. As you heard, we are working in four main areas, which actually are very much interlinked and are subjected to variation of the children's rights, and in particular the child's rights. Because when you talk of issues on commercial sexual exploitation, child labor and in particular hazard as child domestic work, and child trafficking, and child marriage, those are the key phenomena issues which actually, the structures which are not persistent in terms of state owning the shares of protecting children face a lot of challenges and problems when we come to execute the rights of the children. So, today we are seeing these challenges, but we are also hoping as organizations, societies in the country working to get networking with the existing structures which we have in Tanzania to make sure that we trigger down our efforts to the lower level of societies, like the grass-roots societies where they don't have a voice, because we want the children themselves to participate in the area of promoting their rights. But we want their voices actually being articulated to go up to the government officials, to members of the parliament, to the families so that all of them, they can take up best interest of the children as one priority. But the issues now comes to how we, for example, policymakers, do we really have the mandate, for example, to patient them? If we have a mandate, how do we do it? Do they respond? If we say, for example, in one of the late zones, 56% of the young girls under 17 are not in school because they're being married off with their parents. Do we come up with a law at the local level? Do the society complete their own initiative to make sure that they condone such traditional things? We have a lot of things which we can share, as the President has shown us. But we also have a mandate as a society to voice up, to make sure that the children themselves are participating all along in the way of promoting the rights of themselves. Thank you. Thank you, Mama Jesta. For those in the room who are new to the meeting, Mama Jesta is the Executive Director of Kiwethe in Tanzania, which is a Kiwata Women Health and Development Organization. Thank you very much for sharing all of that and the situation in Tanzania about children's rights and the work that Kiwethe is doing to raise the voices of girls and women to the upper levels of the community, into the government, into the policymaking. I'm not sure if everybody was able to hear Mama Jesta very well because of the connection. I think this is a good opportunity for us to continue the conversation, also after this webinar on our community of practice online, so that everybody can be on the same page with what we missed during the audio. And we will also share the recording with you in case you were not able to hear the comments in full. Mr. Anise, would you like to respond to that before I go to the next comments and questions in queue? No, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. I see that Kuzia had added a comment in the chat box. Kuzia, would you like to unmute your phone so that you can make that comment for everybody to hear? Hello. Thank you very much for the presentation. I just wanted to ask you that nowadays, as you said, that children are used in armed conflicts and also you can see that in our recent conversation, children are used as suicide bombers. But on the other hand, many countries have, you know, the prohibitive death sentence for juveniles. And on the other hand, children are used in the criminal activities and terrorist activities. So how do you see this situation and how, what is the, I mean, solution to this situation? How we can address it? Thank you. Thank you very much, Kuzia. Sajida, are you able to unmute your phone and also read us your comments so that everybody in the room can hear? Sajida? Okay, if Sajida is not able to have her audio work, Sajida is saying that she agrees with Anise that there is a requirement to raise awareness about laws related to child protection in developing countries such as Pakistan. And it's true that CSOs, civil society organizations, can play a vital role to create awareness amongst populations. Sajida, if you'd like to add anything to that comment, please feel free to unmute. But in the meantime, I'll proceed to Mostafa, who I saw earlier, unmuted his phone as well. Mostafa, was there a comment or a question that you'd like to raise? Okay, it looks like Mostafa is having audio issues. It seems like he's just left the room. He might be trying to reconnect. There are a few comments in the chat box saying that they appreciated Mama Justa's insights into Tanzania, which is really great. I'll proceed to Frances, who has a comment or a question before proceeding to Sabine, who's unmuted her line as well. Thank you so much, Cherise. Anise, I wanted to ask, did you take all those pictures yourself? It's really brilliant pictures. It speaks to the issue. And those are the type of things that really captures people. But I also want to ask the audience here in the room. These issues that were raised by Anise, is there any of those that you think you are taking on board already or something that you think you can address? I saw this one about the child's right to his or her opinion. I think in the work that we are doing for child early-force marriages and for reaching the unreached, there is something we are addressing in the sense that we are saying to our partners that whatever skills we give to the girls we need to find out from them, is that what you want? It is what they want, what they need, and not for us forcing it on them. So in a way, we are respecting their rights there by giving them the opportunity to tell us what it is that they want to do with their lives. But I'm really curious to know whether there are some of the other issues which were addressed quite challenging issues that you are already taking on board in your work. It doesn't have to be in the work that you are doing on this project with the Commonwealth of Learning. It can be in any of the other work that you are doing. Thank you, Cherise. Thank you very much, Francis. Are there others who want to contribute to the question that Francis had posed before I proceed to the questions in queue? Okay, I see Mama Jasta and then Asiya who had unmuted. Mama Jasta, would you like to make your comments? I think Francis is right because as I said before, most of the issues related to the rights of the children are interlinked because, for example, the causes, the modality and the methods on how we approach and work through to make sure that we are promoting the rights of the children, the policies, the regulations, the conventions, the perceptions of the community, the families, the children themselves, most of the time are interlinked. So whenever we are working in the areas of why then the scope on how we can attack but also how we can implement the programs in regards to the rights of the children. So I think it is very important to be inclusive, to involve all the duty bearers, the stakeholders to make sure that we are in the right path to promote the rights of the children. Thank you very much, Mama Jasta. I'll proceed to Asiya. Yeah, I would just like to respond to Francis Query. Spark has worked on a range of child rights issues including juvenile justice. Magista is pretty right here as well. You have to have collaboration with duty bearers because you cannot work alone. A civil society cannot really work alone in isolation. So I would not like to speak much about Spark's work here because Mr. Lani Saheb has already made a very comprehensive presentation but it's just that my point is working in isolation may not work. It might not work, so working together with government, with civil society, with police, with all relevant departments, with donor agencies, that's the need of the time. So that was the comment from my side. Thank you very much, Asiya. That's a very good point that we need to collaborate with as many organizations as possible and streamliner efforts for the purpose of the child at the very end. Anise, I think you've unmuted your phone. Do you have a comment or a question? Yeah, I want to respond to some of the queries. So the answer to that is taken by me. And like I said, the ones from our Center for Street Children they have been taken only recently. Now, as for Kutziya's question about children involved in terrorism, that's a very difficult question. But many of these children who are taking part in terrorism and the ones used for suicide bombers. Incidentally, most of the suicide bombers who are currently being used in Pakistan, they are children. Now, it goes without saying that these children, they are taking part in these terrorist activities without being convinced. Almost all these children, they have been going to the religious schools and maybe from a very early age. And this is how they have been taught. This is how they have been educated. That if they do as told by their teachers, then they will go to heaven. So I don't think that the children really are being given a proper choice or a decision. So it's not that they are fighting an ideological war. It's more, you can say, a propaganda war where these children, they are being almost hypnotized by their educational institutions. But one thing, you know, Jasta also, she was mentioning this. She gave example of Tanzania. I personally think that most of the issues relating to child rights, they can be solved. Society has the resources. It's just that the rulers and the governments, they are not interested in solving child rights issues because children, they have no voice. Children and a democratic polity, they cannot vote. They don't have political parties. They don't demonstrate. So as a result, the governments, they feel that they can be ignored. And this is a tragedy because in most of the countries, they constitute almost like 50% of the population. And despite this, they are ignored. But all countries, regardless of the resources, they have the money. If you look at the defense budget of almost every country, you will see that, you know, for instance, if you don't want to fancy airplanes or want to fancy tanks, you can build maybe 1000 schools. So it's really a question of priority. That instead of spending billions on these mega projects or buying sophisticated defense equipment, if you spend it on children, you can save hundreds of thousands of children's lives. And lots of times, you know, when we are talking of protecting the lives of children, then not very many resources are needed. It's more a question of political will. The point I'm trying to make here is that a lot depends on political will of the government. If there is a will, it can do a whole lot. Anise, thank you very much. I think your voice was cutting in and out during your comment. But thank you for that additional insight. I think I'm personally inspired by this conversation because we can continue this conversation for many more minutes and for the next hour to come. But for the interest of time, we're coming to the end of the webinar. So we have two questions in queue and then we'll go to the closing remarks because we know it's very late. Your site there in Tanzania and Bangladesh and Pakistan. Mustafa, would you like to read your question and make your comment? Yes, thank you, Cheris. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. I'm using the mobile because I have to switch from one device to another device. Thank you for reconnecting. We can hear you very well. Please go ahead. Okay. Yes, I have one observation and question. Our observation is, actually, if you think of the violation of child rights, so I think it's widespread because if you consider the education, so even if all other rights are okay, but what kind of education we are giving to the students, the curriculum, et cetera. So maybe they are not preparing for the future because our education system, even in Bangladesh and I don't know in Pakistan and some other places in the developing countries, these are very old fashioned, so these are not preparing the students for the future. So it's a kind of violation in my opinion. Even everything is fine, so it's a kind of violation of child rights because they are not prepared as a confident and able citizen for the future. This is the one thing. And then if we see the child rights from different angles, what the presenter is very nice with, so what should be the priority in this space and who will take the lead? For example, what I see about the curriculum if you look at the education and some other rights, we see that the governments are always silent. So from the community point of view and some other institutional level, we can do this. We are just trying to push and I think the initiative of Girls in Spare is excellent here. So they are just emphasizing the education and by addressing education, we can add just a lot of things together. So maybe community can be involved and everything can go together and we can also address the child rights and also directly. So my question is what should be the priority in this case because everywhere it is widespread and who should take the partnership between the government and the private organization or a level organization form in this case. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mostafa. Anise, I see that you've got your microphone on. Would you like to comment on Mostafa's question? Yeah, he was asking about the priority. The priority should be to influence the government. I think the NGOs, the civil society, it will always let the resources to solve children's problems. Just to give you an example, for instance, there are almost like 60 million children right now, not 600 million. So the numbers are huge. So as a result, I think if we need to solve children's problems, then the state will have to intervene. So Mostafa, as he is mentioning about the priorities, I think the priority of all the NGOs should be to convince the government to take steps. And lots of times, unfortunately, the government doesn't get convinced we have to exert pressure on the government to do the needful. Education is important, but when we are talking of education, it's also very important that what are we teaching the children? Now, it's not just alphabets. The content of what a child is learning is also important. So it's very important to keep in mind the content, the curriculum, and I think it has to be upgraded and has to be improved, modernized. It should be progressive. So it's not just education for the sake of education. It's also the quality which is important. Thank you. Thank you, Anise. I think there's a lot here that we can unpack about the quality of education, about what the priorities are for NGOs and CSOs, and how we should have that relationship with the government to make the most impact. And I think Mostafa is the extension team member here at Vancouver. She is the consultant that is helping us engage further on the online community of practice. I think we can continue this valuable discussion online, and Anise, we would really appreciate your continued insight on that platform, and we will send you that information to continue this conversation after this webinar. We have, in the interest of time, we have one more question from Sabine from Spark, and then we'll proceed to the closing remarks. Thank you, Cherise. I just need to know from Anise that as we are all told to keep the best interest of this child in our child protection world, but mostly our efforts or intentions contradict with the parent's intentions. For instance, if a child comes to our center with a broken arm beaten by his mother, and we want to go for his medical treatment, but still as a policy rule, we have to get consent of the parents while the child is already beaten by the parents. And then we find so many challenges and issues from the parents. Another issue or challenge which we face that most of the children, they run away from their homes due to domestic corporal punishment, but again we reunify them with their families and sending them to their homes, keeping in mind that the other risks are much larger than their domestic issues. But still somehow I feel in child protection work of civil society, we feel, you know, keeping in view the other so many issues like the system, the system is broken, there's no, you know, parallel system for the children, but still the family is a major challenge in our daily services or child protection services to children. So how we as a child rights activist or child rights organization overcome this issue. Thank you. So being that's an excellent insight about the very personal level, the very personal challenges that children go to. So what is, how do we balance the interests of the parents and the legalities around that with the children's interests as well. Anise, would you like to comment? Yeah. I think she has a valid concern and this is a problem in a country like Pakistan because the state or public authorities are not present. Like for instance if a similar thing happens in Canada you will have the state resources. You will have various institutions where a child who has been beaten up by his parents could be sent. Unfortunately such institutions are not widely present in Pakistan and even if they are in some cities the quality of these institutions leave a lot to be desired. Lots of times when you compare the livable conditions of these institutions with the house of the child you feel that the child is better off at home than living in an institution. So this is an ongoing struggle for a child rights activist like Sabine to be working in Pakistan. But what we should do is we should also convince the government to have proper institutions in all major cities where these such children could be sent. We should have not just institutions we should have the relevant personnel like the probation officers the social welfare officers who one can concern. There should be councillors who should be able to intervene in such situations. But these authorities and institutions they are missing in Pakistan right now but this is what our struggle is about to have such institutions established. Thank you. Thank you very much, Anise. I think that's a nice summary of what is our goal here. And again I'd like to invite everybody to continue this conversation because there's so many things that we can unpack from this conversation on child protection. Thank you for bearing with us over time. I'd like to pass it back to Francis for the closing remarks. Thank you so much, Sharice. Thank you, a big thank you to everybody who was in the room who stick with us despite the technological challenges because I realized at times there were people who couldn't hear and went out and came in again. Thank you so much. But most importantly, thank you very much, Anise for this enlightening presentation and really thought provoking presentation. As Sharice has indicated we will share this presentation with a wider audience and we hope to continue the discussion. We will send you the link to where the discussion will be and we hope that people will engage. I did ask you earlier about the pictures in your slides. One of the reasons that I'm asking is that should we want to use one of those pictures in some of our marketing material we will ask you permission if it's a picture of yourself a picture that you have taken yourself so that we can use it. As far as pictures taken by me you have my permission in advance. But I'm not sure whether you have taken all those pictures. You can ask me about the picture when I let you know. It was a strange picture that I won't ask you now about. I don't think you have taken. Which one? Give me the slide number. Where the person was spanking the child why did you pick that one? No, that's not taken by me. It's taken from a newspaper. Yes, I knew that one. That's why I'm asking you. Anyways, on a more serious note thank you very much everybody we have gone 13 minutes over our time but I think it was worth it. Thank you so much Cherise for facilitating the session. This was the last session that Cherise facilitated for this specific group. Christina who joined us in Jasmine's previous job has kindly agreed to take over this role and so Christina will be the person that will be in charge at the next session. I will still be there but Christina will take over the facilitation. Thank you so much Christina for preparing all the hard work behind the scenes to get everybody in the room and also communicating with our guest presenter. Thank you so much Anise for all the effort you have made to put the presentation together and for giving us your time in lawyers language. I think it is quite a high amount of contribution in kind that you have given to us now because if we had to pay you with money I don't know what your charges are per hour but thank you so much good evening good afternoon and good morning to us here in Canada until we talk again next time. Thank you very much. If there's any person who wants to say we will leave the mic on otherwise thank you very much. Thank you Yes Mr. Vah Thank you France is a very nice issue and very critical. I would like to just say I might get you to chair this because she conducted all the sessions just staying beside you very nicely effectively and everything she did is very nicely so we are grateful to her for her service in this regard. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that and I'll still be here observing next time but also thank you to you for your work in preparing us with the plugs and we look forward to more of your insight after this discussion so that we can continue all of this valuable conversation. There's a lot here that we can still discuss. Thank you very much Mr. Vah. Have a good night everybody. Thank you very much.