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in the country.
According to UNESCO, at least 5.1 million Pakistani children
were out of school, 63 percent of whom were girls.
As many as 913 girls and women were killed in the name of
honour in 2012. These included at least 99 minor girls.
74% of the girls married off in Charsadda and Mardan districts
of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2012 were under 16.
Children
A marginal decline was observed in infant mortality and under
five year mortality rates in 2012 but Pakistan still lagged behind other
South Asian countries.
58 cases of polio, a disease that afflicts only two other countries
in the world, were reported from 28 districts of Pakistan.
Pakistan had the world’s second highest number of out-ofschool
children aged five to nine years. At 2.8 percent of its gross
national product (GNP), Pakistan’s expenditure on education was the
second lowest in South Asia.
During the first six months of 2012, 1,573 incidents of child
sexual abuse were recorded.
Almost 10 million children were engaged in child labour.
Labour
Pakistan suffered one of the worst industrial disasters in its
history when a fire in a Karachi garments factory claimed at least 270
lives.
Thousands of workers were rendered jobless due to increasing
gas and electricity shortages which led to downsizing in both public
institutions and private companies.
Out of approximately 10,000 brick kilns in Punjab, only 3,836
were registered.
Of the 58 million workers in Pakistan by official reckoning, only
2.1 million were registered for social security benefits.
Although 60 percent of the population is dependant on
agriculture, lack of responsible innovation and investment in
infrastructure, high input costs, failure to impart the requisite skills to
the farmers, and salinity and wate-logging, continued to cause decline
in the produce.
Education
The literacy rate in the country stood at 58 percent.
7
State of Human Rights in 2012