Report gives Pakistan failing grade on human rights

 An annual human rights report released this week gives Pakistan a failing grade, charging that too little is being done to protect country's most vulnerable, including women and children.

264-p report by Independent Pakistan Human Rights Commission laid out a litany of human rights failings. y include unabated hor killings, forced conversions of mirity Hindu under- girls and continued use of a blasphemy law that carries death penalty to intimidate and settle scores.

In December, Pakistan was ranked 151st out of 153 by World Ecomic Forum on Global Gap Index.

“Despite legislation enacted to protect and promote women’s rights in recent years, violence against women has escalated,” report released Thursday said.

It also criticizes increased restrictions on media freedom and criticism of state institutions and a growing number of cases of sexual and physical abuse of children.

re was immediate comment from government.

Pakistan has been slow to enact laws to protect country's most vulnerable and even where laws are in place y are often t enforced by police. Law enforcement ncies in Pakistan are often corrupt or refuse to take word of a woman over a man in Pakistan’s deeply male-dominated society. In March, a powerful cleric who has ear of prime minister blamed global coronavirus pandemic on women who dress immodestly.

Social media outr greeted cleric Tariq Jameel after he blamed women, particularly young women who “choose path of indecency and ... vulgarity," for coronavirus pandemic. His charges were made during a live TV fundraising drive to feed Pakistan's poorest hurt by a weeks-long lock-down to stem virus's spread. Jameel also shamed girls for dancing and wearing “skimpy clothing.”

Jameel, who did t rescind his remarks, later said he was addressing failings of “collective" society.

Pakistan on Friday recorded 16,817 positive cases of COVID-19, illness caused by new coronavirus, with 385 deaths. Pakistan also recorded its largest single day hike in positive cases with 990 new infections. However, Pakistan has also increased its testing to around 8,000 per day, considerably less than 20,000 daily target government has promised.

“ weakest segments of society remained invisible, unheard, neglected, and undermined when it came to real priorities of state — be it children who were malurished, subjected to hazardous labor, sexually abused, physically tortured and murdered; or women who continued to face violence and discrimination at home, at workplace and in public s," report said.

“Pakistan continued to bear a dismal human rights record in terms of complying with constitutional guarantees to its own citizens and international obligations to which it is a state party,” it said.

government's own National Commission on Human Rights has been without a chairperson and six of its seven members for nearly a year.

Requests for country visits by U.N. special investigators on a number of issues are still pending. Those include extrajudicial killings and freedom of religion and promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism.