LAHORE: Coinciding with the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression 2024 (June 4), two minor children of Pakistan, have presented their protest notes, written with their own blood, to different international platforms including the UN, in an attempt to wake up the collective conscience of the world towards the ‘voice of the voiceless’ in Palestine and elsewhere in the world.
According to a press release, issued by a spokesperson for UN-KAKHTAH in Pakistan Dr FM Bhatti on Wednesday, the symbolic note, titled ‘A Voice for the Voiceless’, written by ten-and-a-half years old Ubaydah al-Fiddhah Hafiah, and her 12-year-old brother Ghulam Bishar Hafi, written with their blood, has been conceived as a clarion call, which is destined to ignite a chain of re-sensitizing sequels to knock at the doors of the UN and the global hierarchies to turn their heads and ears to the screams of the innocent children all over the globe.
“It is an undeniable reality that innocent children are the most vulnerable, who become the softest-and-easiest objects of prey in situations of aggression,” adds the release. It says that the protest note is, in fact, an open letter to the international authorities and, at the same time, a wake-up call to the collective conscience of the world to come up with a resolute and unwavering commitment to save the children from ‘Neo-Hitlerian’ tactics that are continuously being employed in the wars or the war-like situations of aggression.
Every year, the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression is observed on June 4 to raise awareness about the innocent children, who went through terrorising experiences in their lives, and what the world could do to uphold the rights of children and the victims of aggression.
As far the history of the day is concerned, on August 19, 1982, the UN General Assembly’s special session focused on the plight that Palestinian and Lebanese children faced due to armed aggression during the Lebanon war. The assembly pledged to protect the rights of the children in Lebanon. The UN General Assembly announced that every year, the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression will be observed on June 4. Soon after, the United Nations expanded their scope to work for the rights of children all over the world.
It is an agonising reality that every day, children living in war zones across the globe are facing unspeakable horrors, either in Palestinian region, Ukraine, Myanmar, Indian-occupied Kashmir, or other countries. “They are not safe sleeping in their homes or playing outside, learning in school or seeking medical care at hospitals.
“From killing and maiming, abduction and sexual violence, to attacks on education and health facilities, and the denial of the humanitarian assistance that they desperately need, children are being caught in the crosshairs of warring parties at a staggering scale,” wrote the United Nations on its official website.
To write something with one’s own blood is the terminal symbolic expression and a confession that — “I or we, have been failed to do what was the imperative requisite of the situation or, at least, the moral obligation that we could have even considered of, sufficiently, seriously and judiciously…!”
The initiative taken by Pakistani children, Ubaydah al-Fiddhah Hafiah, and Ghulam Bishar Hafi, with the help of their father Prof Dr Aurangzeb Hafi, is a well-thought-out effort to draw the world attention to the plight of children victims of aggression across the world and especially different war zones including Gaza, Ukraine, held Kashmir, and Myanmar.
