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Disposable childhoods

22 0
30.09.2025

From the moment a Pakistani child draws its first breath, authorities and society look the other way. From hospitals to schools and madrassas to workshops, children in this country are treated like disposable cutlery - used, tossed aside and forgotten.

Take Lahore General Hospital where a newborn just a couple of days back had been abducted from right under the nose of the staff, guards and administrators who looked on as a bunch of statues bolted to the floor. Not by any cinematic masterminds having high-tech gadgets at their disposal. Not through any great plan but by two women who saw holes – wide enough to march through – in the hospital's handover system and may have greased the palms of underpaid, indifferent staff. That's it. That's all it took for a baby to vanish while those tasked with protecting the littlest and most vulnerable ended up as lifeless dummies in uniform. What does it say about us when kidnapping from a........

© The Express Tribune