Pakistan: Time to take human rights seriously

Index Number: ASA 33/012/1997
Date Published: 31 May 1997
Categories: Asia And The Pacific, Pakistan

In this report, Amnesty International calls on the Government of Pakistan to take human rights seriously, and to use its strength in Parliament to protect and promote human rights. Despite its ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, Pakistan has failed to install the relevant legal safeguards. Instead, successive governments have shown complete disregard for the rule of law. Existing legal and constitutional safeguards are habitually ignored as state agents violate human rights with virtual impunity. Ordinary people, particularly members of vulnerable groups, are unable to obtain redress.