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[LAHORE, 20 November 2007] - Universal Children’s Day 2007 is being observed across the world. This year’s theme for the day is Ending Corporal Punishment. Governmental and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) marked the day by arranging seminars, discussion forums and sport fairs in the city. They also distributed written material on children’s rights. Child rights activist Advocate Rashid Aziz told Daily Times that no society could progress without providing and ensuring children’s rights. “It is our responsibility to celebrate such events to highlight the rights of the children,” he said. He said just celebrating the day would not help children in Pakistan as the real issue that needed to be addressed was how to stop corporal punishment. “People should understand the problems being faced by children in Pakistan,” he said. He said according to reports from international organisations on human and child rights, millions of children in Pakistan were involved in child labour. He said these children become victims of corporal punishment at their workplaces. He said according to a report issued in 2006 by Action-Aid, over 10 million children are involved in child labour. “In the data collected by the government alone, Punjab superseded other provinces,” he said, “Children are working in around 52 sectors.” He said no survey was conducted after 1996. Punjab Labour Department director Saeed Awan told Daily Times that according to the survey in 1996, around 3.3 million children were involved in child labour across the country. He said the next survey on the issue might be planned by the end of this year. He said the department had approached 26,000 children involved in the carpet weaving industry and 8,000 children in the football industry so far. He said a large number of children were working in houses and in the agriculture sector, but their record was not available. Since December 14, 1954, the United Nations and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation have observed November 20 as Universal Children’s Day. November 20 marks the day on which the General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.