Separated parents demand better reunion facilities at Rawalpindi court complex
The mess of cement and iron benches reflects the inadequacy of facilities at the Rawalpindi court complex for separated parents and children. Photo: Express
RAWALPINDI:
By the end of 2025, a record and alarming increase was seen in meetings between divorced parents and their separated children at the Family Facilitation Center in the Rawalpindi Court Complex.
This increase, which continued throughout the year on a monthly basis, is mainly attributed to the increase in the divorce rate.
Previously, meetings with separated children were permitted once a week, on a designated day, with the authorization of a family court judge.
However, due to the sharp increase in the number of divorced couples, such meetings now take place daily. According to the head of the family entertainment center, between 45 and 65 divorced mothers, fathers, grandparents and close relatives visit the center daily to meet the children.
On a weekly basis, 360 to 390 divorced couples visit the facility, while the monthly figure is between 9,000 and 10,500. From January 1 to December 31, 2025, a total of 22,185 divorced parents met their ex-children at the center.
These encounters often present moving and heartbreaking scenes.
Children living with their mothers after a divorce are visited by their fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, while children living with their fathers – whose mothers have remarried – are visited by maternal relatives, including grandmothers, grandfathers and aunts.
Parents bring pizzas, burgers, juices, cakes, sweets, roast chicken and pulao for the children, along with toys, clothes, shoes, bicycles and cash gifts. Each meeting lasts between 30 and 40 minutes, and at a time, 15 to 20 couples can meet their children at the facility.
Parents and elders visiting the center have expressed serious complaints about the condition of the facility. Visitors, including Waris Ali, Masood Khan and Iftikharuddin, said the waiting area is completely open to the sky, with cement and iron benches that are impossible to sit on in extreme cold.
They said the benches remained damp and dirty from the morning dew and were never cleaned. There is no drinking water and parents are forced to wait in the open. A small plastic shed exists, but rainwater enters from all sides, leaving visitors soaked.
They demanded the construction of a proper roof, replacement of iron and cement benches with chairs, provision for protection from the sun and rain and expansion of the center to allow at least 50 parents to meet their children at the same time.
They also called for converting the single-story building into a three-story building and introducing an online meeting system to ease difficulties.
The main demand of the parents was that instead of reuniting in judicial facilitation centers, the children should be handed over to the separated parent twice a month for a full day, against strict guarantees and sureties.
They suggested that CNICs and passports of visiting parents and relatives be deposited as security for a day. They said this would provide children with a friendlier environment during meetings.
