Submitted by crinadmin on
Omar Sial, 39, is a lawyer based in Karachi, Pakistan. While he works predominantly on commercial cases, his 'bread and butter', his passion is constitutional law and, more specifically, children's rights. Read his paper on juvenile justice in Pakistan. I find constitutional law much more stimulating, although in Pakistan it is the market forces which predominate so it makes it difficult to help people. This means I have to do the commercial side in order to be able to afford to do the rest pro bono. I have been especially concerned with children's issues, and we work with several NGOs here. I feel very fortunate to be able to help, although perhaps my wife and family would not say so! It takes extra time of course, but people just do not have the capacity to pay so I have to do both roles. We work across a range of areas in law. That's how it works in Pakistan – you have small firms working on a lot of different issues, such as family, criminal, insurance and so on. So we help out with sexual exploitation cases for example. I might see them in the paper and offer to help. The laws are not actually that bad. And we have the treaties. The problem is, and this is not always discussed when you talk about international human rights treaties and the need for ratification, with implementation. The judiciary often do not know anything about the treaties, and any knowledge they do have is often overshadowed by political, cultural and religious considerations. The children who are affected most are ones from low income families, who do not know their rights. With some NGOs here, they may get funding to educate about human rights, and then they put these adverts in newspapers. But how is a child without any education in a rural area supposed to read or understand it? I have been very critical of Western funding. NGOs here are doing some fabulous work, they they often market themselves very well, with nice websites talking about all the things that they do. But they are not able to do all those things they say they are doing. Its all very well having a great website, and organising seminars and workshops, or writing reports, but what about their target audience? They are not in the cities, although there are obviously problems there, but in the rural areas. There are organisations doing good work, but they could do so much more. The judiciary is not trained enough on the rights of children. For example, children should be granted bail in criminal cases, but most judges treat them as they would a 45-year-old. I would say that in 75 per cent of cases, the judges do not know what the children's laws are, or the treaties. A case that is very close to my heart is one that has already been going for five years. In 2003 the government began plans to build the Lyari expressway, which resulted in the biggest displacement of people in the history of Pakistan. More than 250,000 people were displaced, and thousands of schools demolished, yet the construction went unnoticed by the judiciary. People were compensated, but this was not meaningful. They were moved 50 miles away to plots of land without water, and with no schools for education. And all this to build a highway for the elite, which the government cannot afford to finish and which only sees about 100 cars a day. Anyone looking at this would see it is illegal, but the judges do not have the courage to say so. I know its a cliché, but the best thing about my job is the smile you see at the end of the day on the client's face. The worst is that I have to put a mask on and cater to the corporate world for the bread and butter cases. If I could sum up the state of children's rights in one word? Abysmal. For more information, contact: Further information
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