DAWN Editorials 10th August 2026

Genuine governance

ON the surface, the Punjab cabinet’s decision to allocate funds for local government elections is a welcome step towards restoring a democratic tier of governance that has remained absent for more than four years — in fact, for much longer in practical terms.

After years of premature dissolution, court-mandated reinstatement, repeated delays and legal and administrative manoeuvring, the allocation suggests that Punjab is finally preparing to hold polls that were constitutionally due by April 2022. The timing, however, is difficult to ignore.

The announcement comes only days after the interior minister, with the public endorsement of DG ISPR, argued that creating new provinces or administrative units could improve governance. The sudden will to revive LGs may well be aimed at demonstrating that devolution to the grassroots can improve governance and that LGs offer an alternative to redrawing provincial boundaries as proposed by certain quarters.

That argument would have carried weight had Punjab chosen to establish a genuinely empowered LG system. Unfortunately, it has done the opposite. The existing Punjab LG law is devolution only in name. While it provides for elected councils, it concentrates meaningful administrative and financial authority in the hands of the provincial government and bureaucracy, making elected local representatives dependent on the goodwill of officials for even routine decisions.

Such an arrangement defeats the very purpose of LGs, which is to bring decision-making closer to the citizens. Punjab’s legislation compares unfavourably even with that of other provinces where LGs enjoy relatively greater governance space. The country’s largest province has opted for perhaps the most centralised model of local governance.

The experience of the past six decades illustrates why merely holding elections is not enough. Successive governments have dissolved local bodies and amended or replaced LG laws at their whim. Thus a constitutional obligation has been repeatedly ignored and grassroots democracy treated as an optional exercise rather than a permanent feature of governance. Meaningful devolution requires much more than elected councillors.

A truly functional third tier of government must have constitutionally protected administrative and financial autonomy. LGs should be able to raise, allocate and spend resources without provincial interference. The local bureaucracy and police should be accountable to elected local representatives rather than exclusively to the province. Without such authority, elected councils are little more than advisory bodies with limited capacity to address citizens’ issues.

The governance challenges of Punjab — and of other provinces — stem from the excessive centralisation of power. Holding polls under a law that denies genuine autonomy to LGs may satisfy a constitutional formality. But it will not resolve the governance deficit that has fuelled demands for more provinces to improve governance.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2026

Failed by the state

THE 1,914 cases of child abuse across Pakistan in the first six months of 2026 should spark outrage. The figure works out to more than 10 cases a day, and even that is only what appeared in newspapers monitored by Sahil. Of the total, 1,015 involved child sexual abuse, 558 abduction, 101 missing children, 35 child marriages and 98 pornography linked to sexual abuse. Forty-nine infants were found abandoned on the roadside. Girls accounted for 58pc of victims, though boys constituted 59pc of the pornography-linked cases. Children aged 11 to 15 were the largest group, with 598 victims, followed by 356 aged 16 to 18 and 329 aged six to 10. In 487 cases, the child’s age was not reported. But the most disturbing numbers concern who commits the abuse. In 43pc of cases the alleged abuser was an acquaintance, while 45pc of incidents took place in the victim’s own home. The recent Qayyumabad case in Karachi, involving the alleged rape and murder of a toddler by a teenage relative living with the family, provides a chilling context. The danger is often embedded in familiar relationships where children should be safest.

There is little comfort in the fact that the overall tally is marginally lower than the 1,956 cases recorded in the same period in 2025. A small fall cannot be confused with progress, particularly when Sahil’s method captures only cases that reach the press. Nor can these figures tell us conclusively whether abuse itself is rising or reporting has improved. What they do establish is persistent failure. Punjab alone accounts for 80pc of reported cases, and all 10 districts identified by Sahil as the most vulnerable are in the province. Meanwhile, 89pc of cases were registered with police. That is welcome, but an FIR is not a child protection policy. Registration comes after the damage is done. The state’s task is prevention — functioning child-protection authorities, trained police and social workers, safe schools and neighbourhoods, swift prosecution and reporting systems that children can trust. Pakistan has no shortage of laws and departments in this respect, nor any lack of condemnatory statements after each atrocity. What it does not have is evidence that these mechanisms are keeping its children safe. When hundreds of children can be abused, abducted, exploited or abandoned in six months, the state cannot take comfort in recording the crime. It should be made to answer for failing to prevent it.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2026

HIV crisis

PAKISTAN’s presence among countries with the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in Asia is a matter of shame. Globally, the virus is found in drug addicts, sex workers and other high-risk sections. What makes our crisis more distressing is the victims’ profile: children and low-risk groups who have been infected because of a broken healthcare system. Sindh’s health department has said that the necessary measures were in place to curb HIV’s spread, including 44 antiretroviral therapy centres in the province. Meanwhile, a Senate committee wants the complete findings of the Sindh Healthcare Commission’s inspection of Karachi’s Valika Hospital, where nearly 100 children tested positive for HIV due to reused syringes, infected vials and unsafe transfusions. The findings will help the authorities decide whether the facility, one of the many hospitals operating without a SHCC licence, deserves a permit.

Hospital fiascos here surface with troubling regularity on the same pattern as the 2019 Ratodero eruption. According to reports, the number of children who have contracted HIV through unsafe medical care is 7,500. Overall, 25,000 people are believed to have died after being infected by the virus. Poor diagnosis delays treatment. Immediate action should involve the screening of exposed people, counselling and lifelong antiretroviral therapy. The privacy of all carriers must be maintained, with compensation for transmissions caused by healthcare lapses. Aggressive steps should include regular hospital spot checks, blood-screening guidelines, steady stocks of auto-reusable syringes, and suspension of licences of erring medical outlets. The spread of HIV is a full-blown national emergency that demands comprehensive, sustained healthcare reform. Staunch political will and a cohesive social response are vital to containing this preventable virus. Hospitals cannot become incubators of disease. Public trust is the first casualty of systems that, instead of curing patients, expose them to danger.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2026