3-year-old files landmark air pollution lawsuit in Pakistan

In a striking environmental case, a 3-year-old girl has filed a lawsuit against the government of Pakistan's Punjab province over severe air pollution.

The thick smog engulfing Punjab's megacity of Lahore has significantly affected daily life, leading to school closures and curtailing outdoor activities, especially impacting children’s health and development.

How it started?

Her father, Jahanzeb Sukhera, also a lawyer, spoke to Nuktaabout the young litigant's legal strategy.

One day when her daughter was going to school, he said, she noticed a haze and felt that her eyes were watering.

When she reached school, her class fellows complained of the same thing, he said.

The teacher told them about smog and that is how the conversation started at home, Sukhera said.

With schools and playgrounds closed, children have been holed up inside their homes, he said, and they have been the most affected.

"So they being in court makes the most sense," he said.

Past cases filed by children

This lawsuit joins a global wave of youth-led environmental activism. Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist from Sweden, has inspired children worldwide to push for action on climate issues, asserting that governments have a responsibility to protect their futures. Thunberg's activism, which includes challenging world leaders at the UN, highlights the urgency of these issues for younger generations.

Sukhera said Pakistan has a history of child-led public interest cases.

"But in respect of our case, there is this one very interesting case from the Phillippines where children went to court against the cutting of a forest and they said in court that the older generations do not have the right to deprive the future generations of the forest," he said.

Their legal strategy is to highlight a particular provision of the Punjab Environment Protection Act which provides that no person can operate a motor vehicle which emits smoke or has emissions beyond a prescribed standard.

So basically any vehicle operating in the province has to be tested once or twice a year for emissions, he said, adding that this is general practice world over but is not being implemented in Pakistan.

Everyone's daughter

"Amal Sukhera is not just my daughter, or my wife's daughter, she is every one's 3-year-old daughter, everyone's 3-year-old granddaughter. She is the chief minister's granddaughter also," he said.

He urged the Punjab government to take up Amal Sukhera's cause and enforce the law.

Her daughter he said has gone to the judge and told him "to make the smoke go because it's making her cough."

So she is aware that people are talking about the case, he said.