Lahore, July 14, 2010. (By Ashfaq Fateh for PCP) Scores of Christian children including boys and girls of twelve to thirteen urged Pakistani government to ensure equal citizenship rights and stop all forms of discriminations and prejudices against religious minorities & women in Pakistan. The children panelists demanded to stop forced conversation of girls and women of religious minorities, increase budget allocation for development and inclusion of young people in youth commission. Applied Scio-Economic Research (ASR Lahore) organized Provincial Children Conference here in Lahore on the concluding day of ASR’s two weeks residential Summer School on “Women Rights and Gender inequality, Minorities Rights and Equal Citizenship rights and Peace & Conflict” The school was attended by boys and girls including Christians, Hindus and Muslims with equal participation of boys and girls. Ms. Naghat Saeed Khan, directress ASR, Lahore told, “ASR has been working on Women, Minorities and Peace. It has worked with these groups on various aspects, however in 2005 an idea was evolved to start a two weeks residential Summer School with young children and give them a chance to have the living experience with the serving institutions and organizations for the weaker groups of the society. It was observed poor Muslims send their children to Islamic Seminaries where food and other necessities are provided to them with extremist teachings. We tried to have the experience with the children of all religious communities of Pakistan including Muslim boys and girls together to create love and understanding among each other. In two week school children were taken for exposures like, visit to different religious places, Gurduwara, Minder and Mosque. The religious leaders shared about their rituals and teachings. Similarly Children were taken to Indo-Pak border and then they were asked to talk about peace and issues between the two countries. They visited museum, children library & Hospital and theater etc. ASR is very happy that it has got a very good response from the communities. We are motivating the government to adopt the Summer School model in public schools to give an education where all religions and women are respected and children taught to believe in peace, harmony and tolerance rather than gender biases, hatred for other religions, and stimulation of wars etc. The government can make the best use of the summer holidays in the public schools while conducting the similar schools. Noriaz Javed 12 said, “In my day to day life, I do not see any discrimination or Majority & Minority issue, however, when I hear and meet older Christians who shared their stories that they are denied jobs for being Christian. It hurts me a lot. I learnt in school that under the constitution of Pakistan all citizens are equal but on the other hand, it also states that no person belongs to religious minorities can be a Prime Minister or President of Pakistan. The founding father of the nation Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah addressing the legislative Assembly of Pakistan on August 11, 1948 had given the nation a vision for its citizens where each one will be treated equally. Alas! The rulers have forgotten the vision for a prosper Pakistan. The budget of the Punjab government for religious minorities is not enough. If one looks the budget carefully against the Muslim population, one would only laugh over the allocation” Uzma Munawar 13 said, “She becomes frustrated when she hears the stories for Christian girls abduction and forcibly converting them to Islam. I learnt Human rights during school and could not stop myself to speak out to the government officials to stop this inhuman act occurring over the past 63 years because each one has a right to chose a religion of his/her choice. I feel blessed that God gave me strengthen to speak for the rights of women.” I have also demanded the Chief Minister of the Punjab to allocate Quota for religious minorities as he has allocated for widows, orphans, persons with disabilities and terrorism affected people in the schemes of low cast housing and free distribution land to build houses in rural areas. I read in the newspapers that Chief Minister of the Punjab formed a Youth Commission for their development. It has been learnt not a single youth from religious minorities have been taken in the Commission. If CM will add minorities’ youth, they can share their problems and plans to serve Pakistan” Kashish Peter 11 said, the religious events of Christians, Muslims and others have great importance to me and I celebrate them with my friends and my family. I try to learn about Chinese New Year, Noroz, Basakhi, Holy, Eids in Islam. I noted wherever there are Islamic festivals government spends a lot of tax money to provide relief to the Muslim brothers and sisters even on illumination of buildings no matter if there are energy crises but no special relief’s are given to people belongs to religious minorities. However, I never loose hope and promise that I will keep on working to build strong Pakistan. I pray, may peace prevail in Pakistan” Nighat Saeed Khan studied in Convent of Jesus and Mary School and she is thankful to her teacher Rev. Sister Andrew of the Religious of Jesus & Mary presently serving in Toba Tek Singh who envisioned her to make change in the lives of the weaker groups of the society. Ms. Khan is the founding member of the Women’s Action Forum (WAF). They raised strong voices of women and minorities during the former Dictator General Zia-Ul-Haq against his Islamization which affected the religious minorities and women in Pakistan. Ms. Rafia Salomi Deputy Director Society for Human Development expressed her joy over the learning and finding of the children. Her organization assisted ASR to select children from various communities. She said, she has been receiving a positive feed back from the parents. Her own organization has also been working for the weaker groups of the society since 1984 and is an icon of rights based movements in Pakistan.