Children's Complaint Office

Objectives:

1. Establish a dedicated redress and response system for children’s complaints against maladministration by any federal agency.
2. Provide a platform for addressing child rights issues through research, advocacy and engagement with children and other stakeholders on children’s rights.
3. Monitor compliance of federal agencies with the UNCRC and the progress of National Plan of Action.
4. Advise the government on systemic issues that impact the rights of children and compliance with the UNCRC.

Strategy:

1. Build capacity within the office of the Wafaqi Mohtasib (Ombudsman) for dealing with children’s complaints.
2. Improve coordination and policy dialogue between public sector agencies responsible for oversight on child rights, and other stakeholders.
3. Establish an organized, extensive network for advocacy and outreach on issues related to children’s rights.

Progress:

1. Advertisement/PR/Communication campaign launched to create awareness about children’s rights and the children’s complaints office.
2. The Children’s Complaints Office organized a one-day national conference ‘Improving Institutional Mechanisms for Children’s Complaints Redressal Systems’ at 11th January 2010 at Marriot Hotel Islamabad. The conference introduced the CCO to the public and reviewed and recommended improvements in the available institutional arrangements at the federal level dealing with violation of children’s rights.
3. Training Workshop on ‘Mechanisms for Redressal of Children's Complaints’ was organized to educate the staff about children’s rights and train them on how to handle children’s complaints. The workshop was held at Pearl Continental Bhurban from 15th to 17th December 2009 and participants of Children Complaint Offices of Federal and Provincial Ombudsman participated in the workshop.
4. An in-house conference of the WMS was organized to review and recommend changes in the current systems and procedures. Some recommendations were made, i.e. which have been implemented:
1. Requirement for National Identity Card while filing complaint is removed.
2. Facility for making online complaints is accessible.
5. CCO operations were integrated within the Ombudsman’s system.
6. Between 1st January 2009 to 30th December 2009, a total of 183 complaints were received. Out of these 183 complaints, 33 were not admissible, 96 were referred to provincial Mohtasib, 3 were rejected on merit and 28 were resolved while 9 are under investigation by the CCO.
7. A Universal Access Number (UAN) to receive children’s complaints has been integrated with the Ombudsman’s system and operationalized.
8. A database for children’s complaints registration and tracking is developed.
9. The CCO at WMS has been replicated by three provincial ombudsman.
10. A national multi-stakeholder consultative workshop was organized in December 2008 in Lahore to initiate a broad based dialogue on child rights and bridge coordination gaps.