MULTAN, June 4th:The state of Pakistani children in 2009 is once again a sad reminder that Pakistan is not doing enough for the welfare of its children, said a report launched by Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) here on Thursday at a local hotel. According to the report, every year 400,000 children under five years of age die in Pakistan and out of these, over 300,000 die in the first year of their lives. Similarly, increasing poverty is pushing more and more children towards child labour and state’s neglect towards education reduces their chances to seek education. The report notes that in addition to this, all child related legislation is in an indeterminate state. Speaking at the launch of SPARC’s flagship report ‘The State of Pakistan’s Children 2009’, SPARC Executive Director Arshad Mahmood said this was an opportune time to ask some difficult questions. "We have to ask the state as to what has been done in the last 20 years to ensure that all children enjoy their basic rights. We need to know why it is taking so long to legislate on children and why budgetary allocations for child related programmes remain insignificant," he said. He said that it was also deplorable that there was still no statutory body in the country to protect and promote child rights in Pakistan. "Pakistan ratified the ‘Convention on the Rights of the Child’ in 1990 and committed to align its national laws and policies with the provisions of the convention," he added. He lamented that it was sad that successive governments failed to fulfill the provisions of the convention. "How can we expect Pakistan to prosper without investing in its children?" he asked. Giving details of the report, Mahmood said children in Pakistan continued to bear the brunt of poverty, illiteracy, poor governance, corruption, terrorism and militancy. He said that given the present plight, Pakistani children are easily trapped by militants who exploit their poverty and recruit them into their outfits to meet their designs. "Whichever way we look, children pay a heavy price and remain deprived of the rights enshrined in the country’s constitution as well as in the international instrument to which Pakistan is a signatory," he noted.