ISLAMABAD: A 14-year-old Pakistani girl championing climate action was appointed on Friday by the United Nations humanitarian and developmental agency for children as Youth Advocate for Climate Action and Girls Empowerment in the country, making her express the resolve for “meaningful change.”
Zunaira Qayyum, who hails from Hub district in Balochistan, has previously collaborated with UNICEF. Her research on the impacts of climate change-induced floods on girls’ secondary education in her native district was among the winners of the UNICEF Policy Research Challenge in 2023.
She has since trained adolescents in her hometown on advocacy, policy engagement, research and network building.
“I am honored to join UNICEF Pakistan as a Youth Advocate to champion children’s rights and well-being,” Qayyum was quoted as saying in a statement shared by the UN agency. “Meaningful change starts with listening to the voices of children and youth and making sure we can participate in decisions that shape our future.”
UNICEF appoints Youth Advocates to amplify children’s voices on critical issues such as climate change, education and child rights. The initiative aims to empower young leaders to engage in policymaking and raise awareness on global platforms. Similar appointments have been made in other countries, with young activists working on issues from environmental justice to gender equality.
Pakistan is increasingly vulnerable to climate change, with floods, droughts and heatwaves disrupting the lives of millions, including children. The UNICEF statement said climate-induced hazards disrupted schooling for 26 million children in 2024 alone.
In Punjab, 16 million children were affected when severe air pollution forced school closures in November.
“The climate crisis poses one of the biggest challenges we have ever faced, but when I listen to Zunaira and the children of Pakistan, I find hope and inspiration for the future,” said Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in Pakistan. “We must do more to empower children and young people with opportunities to lead, act and help this country prosper.”
Qayyum, who has represented Pakistan’s youth at national and international forums, including COP29, was appointed at the Dawn Media Breathe Pakistan Climate Conference. The UN agency expressed hope her advocacy will encourage more young people to take an active role in addressing climate and education challenges.
UN agency names Pakistani teen as Youth Advocate for Climate Action, Girls Empowerment
https://arab.news/5zd6q
UN agency names Pakistani teen as Youth Advocate for Climate Action, Girls Empowerment
- 14-year-old Zunaira Qayyum hails from Hub in Balochistan and has previously collaborated with UNICEF
- Her research on the impacts of climate-induced floods on girls’ education won the agency’s 2023 award
Pakistan’s Sindh announces judicial inquiry into deadly Karachi plaza fire
- Around 80 people were killed in Karachi Gul Plaza fire that broke out on Jan. 17, says Sindh information minister
- Says initial fact-finding committee discovered fire tenders were provided water with delay, which affected firefighting
ISLAMABAD: Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon announced on Thursday that the provincial government has requested a judicial inquiry into a deadly Karachi shopping plaza inferno that killed around 80 people earlier this month.
The fire broke out at Karachi’s famous Gul Plaza, a multi-story shopping complex in the city’s Saddar area, on the night of Jan. 17. The blaze killed 80 and took three days to extinguish, while rescue and relief efforts took over a week.
Speaking to reporters during a news conference, Memon said a Sindh cabinet sub-committee, chaired by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, reviewed a fact-finding committee report on the Karachi Gul Plaza fire.
He said the fact-finding committee discovered that the Civil Defense department conducted fire safety audits of the mall and other buildings since 2023, but no effective, precautionary or legal action was taken to ensure such incidents were avoided. He said as a result, the Civil Defense director and the department’s additional controller for district South were both suspended.
“A letter is being written to the honorable chief justice of the Sindh High Court in which we are requesting the chief justice to appoint a serving judge for a judicial inquiry,” Memon said.
“So that we can review everything in accordance with the law himself and take decisions on it.”
Memon said that there were around 2,000 to 2,500 people in the building when the fire broke out, adding that these included workers and visitors.
He said the sub-committee had also noted that fire tenders were provided water with delay which affected the firefighting services of the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC), Rescue 1122 and fire brigades.
The minister said the government had also suspended the chief engineer and in-charge hydrants of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation, and that action will be taken against them.
Memon said the committee had also concluded that the KMC, Rescue 1122 and fire brigades’ firefighting tools and training to deal with an inferno of such a scale were “inadequate.”
He said the government has also suspended the senior director of municipal services in the KMC and that departmental action against him will be taken for not ensuring that the fire staff was properly prepared to tackle such a blaze.
The minister said the sub-committee had directed the relevant department to carry out a needs assessment so that the firefighting capabilities of the provincial and local government are further strengthened.
Fires have become an increasingly frequent occurrence in Karachi, a megacity of more than 20 million people, where fire services remain severely overstretched and under-resourced relative to population density and the scale of commercial activity.
Successive deadly incidents have drawn criticism of the provincial Sindh administration over lax enforcement of building codes, inadequate inspections and limited emergency response capacity.
Sindh’s opposition parties, especially the Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan, accuse the Sindh government of neglecting Karachi’s infrastructural development. The provincial government rejects these allegations.
