Research indicates that it is the early years in a child’s life which lay down the foundations for the choices that he or she will make in the future. Despite the entitlement to free education guaranteed to all children under the Constitution of Pakistan, very little progress has been made within the context of children that are incarcerated with their mothers in prison facilities across the country. These children do not feature on any policy level discussion as they appear as a mere after thought in dialogues. Vast spread institutional discrimination persists against them after release despite the blatant fact that these children remained in judicial remand for no fault of their own. They are uprooted from their homes, neighborhoods and in some cases from schools. Their ties with their extended families and educational institutions are severed. Their sense of normalcy is substituted with long days spent behind bars.
In the case of a few, the only intermittent getaways from incarceration are the heavily guarded trips to courts for case hearings where they accompany their implicated mothers and are exposed to a harsh world which would be beyond the grasp of any child. These children are at a heightened risk because of the preponderance of adverse influences that engulf their day to day lives and because there is no other engagement which neutralizes the possibility of hardening these young minds and souls.
The Legal Aid Office has identified these children as being high at risk and being deprived of any schooling facilities in the facilities accommodating them in Sindh. We have set out to make a difference in their lives with the establishment of an Early Learning Centre that will productively engaged children between the ages of 2.5 to 9 years in classes scheduled five days a week outside the setting of their prison barracks. The Early Learning Centre was inaugurated on August 8th, 2015. Help us build a counter narrative by educating these children.
Early Learning Centre - Women's Prison Karachi 