Although it may not be widely acknowledged, but it is hard to ignore the prevalence of child sexual abuse, exploitation and neglect in Pakistan. According to a Unicef-funded study on “The State of Children in Pakistan” by the Children’s Complaints Office (CCO), Islamabad, existing laws suffer from weak implementation. The criminal justice system is also not child-friendly. There is lack of knowledge and data on the prevalence of abuse and neglect, as a whole, especially when it occurs within the family. The study painted a gloomy picture of child sexual abuse and exploitation situation in Islamabad, Punjab, Sindh, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Fata. The study revealed that child sexual abuse is normally shrouded in secrecy. The available evidence shows that it is mostly acquaintances that abuse children, and exploit their trust. Victims are both girls and boys. According to an NGO, Sahil that mostly deals with child rights issues, 3,508 cases of child sexual abuse were reported in Pakistan in 2014. The figure shows an increase of 17 per cent from the previous year. There were 1,225 cases and 258 cases of attempted rape, sodomy, gang rape and gang sodomy. There is a paucity of reliable statistics and published data on the prevalence of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) in the country. Very few cases are reported by families to save family “honour”. It is a fact that hundreds more such incidents probably go unreported with the families of children themselves engaged in cover-ups and reluctant to make the details public to protect themselves from social stigma. The insensitivity of the police and the judicial system in handling such matters does not help. The Kasur episode serves as a reminder that we need change. Provincial governments need to plan out precisely how this can happen. More effective complaint lines, the promise of anonymity to those reporting abuse and other measures widely used by many countries would help. It is time we brought these into play, given how common child sexual abuse is and the need to stop it before more children are pulled into its vicious grip and scarred both emotionally and physically by the violence committed against them. Such violence needs to be punished.
pk.shafaqna.com
