A child born in Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, or Quetta does not face the same level of protection from violence, abuse, or neglect. This is not because Pakistan lacks laws or institutions, but because child protection has developed into distinct provincial systems following the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
Devolution has resulted in differentiated provincial child protection frameworks, alongside an evident gap in coherent national standards and coordination to ensure that children’s rights are protected equally across the country. Policy design and the delivery of child protection services are primarily located at the provincial level, but the State — as a Party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child — remains responsible for ensuring that all children enjoy their rights on an equal basis across the country.
This fragmentation is not merely an administrative concern; it raises a fundamental legal and rights-based question about responsibility. International law is clear that decentralisation does not dilute a State’s obligations to children.
In its General Comment No. 5, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child emphasises that while powers may be devolved to sub-national authorities, the State remains responsible for ensuring the full and equal implementation of the Convention across its entire territory. Devolution cannot become a justification for unequal enjoyment of rights by children living in different regions.
In practice, Pakistan’s child protection landscape reflects substantial variation. Each province and the Islamabad Capital Territory operate under separate child protection statutes and institutional mandates, enacted at different points in time and with differing scopes, coverage, and enforcement arrangements.
The consequence is an uneven system in which access to protection services, institutional response, and legal remedies is shaped to a considerable extent by geography. Some jurisdictions have developed more comprehensive arrangements across prevention and response, while others continue to face constraints in reach, enforcement, or consistency of service delivery.
This divergence is neither surprising nor accidental; it reflects devolved systems operating without shared national standards or effective coordination.
These differences are also visible in how child protection itself is conceptualised and operationalised across jurisdictions. In some contexts, frameworks have historically centred on rescue, protective custody, care, and rehabilitation of destitute and neglected children, with strong reliance on institutional placement and court-directed arrangements.
While such models address immediate welfare needs and have increasingly been complemented by preventive initiatives, they reflect an approach that places greater emphasis on response than on prevention and family- or community-based alternatives. Variation in approach is not inherently problematic; however, in the absence of a national baseline, it results in different levels of protection for children facing similar harms in different parts of the country.
National coordination is not a challenge to devolution; it is the condition that allows devolution to produce equitable, child-centred protection outcomes
The consequences of fragmentation are particularly evident where child protection and gender equality intersect, such as in child marriage. Despite repeated recommendations by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and other UN human rights mechanisms to set the minimum age of marriage at 18 years, Pakistan continues to operate under divergent provincial legal frameworks.
While jurisdictions such as the Islamabad Capital Territory, Sindh, and Balochistan have moved to align their laws with international standards, legal thresholds remain inconsistent elsewhere. Courts have also highlighted these inconsistencies, calling for alignment with the constitutional guarantee of equality under Article 25.
The result is a legal environment in which a girl’s protection from early and forced marriage may vary according to where she lives, rather than being secured through uniform safeguards.
Similar variation exists in the legal frameworks governing child labour across the provinces and the Islamabad Capital Territory. Minimum age thresholds for children’s admission to work differ across jurisdictions, reflecting divergent policy approaches rather than a shared national standard.
While some frameworks set the minimum age at 15 years and others apply lower age thresholds, implementation gaps persist across systems. These disparities are particularly concerning in relation to child domestic labour, widely recognised as exposing children to heightened risks of exploitation and abuse in private settings.
Although some jurisdictions have taken steps to prohibit or restrict child domestic labour, questions remain regarding the effective implementation of these safeguards. In practical terms, children’s exposure to economic exploitation can therefore differ significantly across jurisdictions.
These inconsistencies also intersect with Article 25-A of the Constitution, which guarantees free and compulsory education for all children aged 5 to 16 and is reflected in provincial education laws.
In practice, differences between compulsory schooling requirements and the legally permissible age for admission to employment under various child labour frameworks create a structural contradiction, allowing work to compete with schooling during years that are constitutionally intended for education.
Fragmented labour frameworks thus risk weakening the constitutional guarantee of education, further underscoring the need for coherent national standards.
The issue, therefore, is not provincial autonomy, but the absence of a coherent national reference framework and effective coordination across provinces. While provincial systems lead the delivery of child protection services, the lack of a shared framework means that these efforts are not supported by consistent standards, structured mechanisms, or aligned monitoring systems.
Without agreed minimum standards, there is no assurance that provincial systems meet core child protection requirements across prevention, response, and accountability, nor a consistent means to track outcomes, identify systemic gaps, and prevent disparities between regions. As a result, the promise of equal protection and the best interests of the childares realised unevenly across Pakistan.
Addressing this gap does not require rolling back the 18th Amendment or re-centralising child protection, nor does it call for uniform provincial laws.
What is needed is a national framework that establishes minimum child protection standards, supports coordination across sectors and levels of government, and enables regular monitoring in line with Pakistan’s constitutional and international obligations. Provinces would retain full authority to design and implement their own systems, but within a shared baseline that guarantees every child, regardless of province, the same fundamental level of protection.
Pakistan already has an institution capable of supporting this role. International standards recognise national human rights institutions as key actors in promoting legislative harmonisation, advising public authorities, and monitoring compliance with the Convention.
These functions are fully consistent with the statutory mandate of the National Commission on the Rights of the Child under its governing law. In this context, the Commission is well placed to serve as a national reference point for child protection standards, coordination, and accountability. Yet this coordinating and oversight potential has not been fully realised.
Strengthening this function would not undermine provincial authority; it would help align diverse provincial systems with shared national and international commitments.
Federalism was intended to bring governance closer to the people through provincial autonomy, not to fragment fundamental rights. As Pakistan continues to strengthen provincial child protection systems, it must also recognise that children’s rights cannot depend on administrative boundaries or provincial capacity alone.
National coordination is not a challenge to devolution; it is the condition that allows devolution to produce equitable, child-centred protection outcomes. Without national standards and oversight, equality before the law for children risks remaining an aspiration rather than a guarantee.