The recent case of rape and torture of a five-year-old girl has once again sparked national outrage with several demanding immediate justice through public hanging of the culprit. The incinerated body of the minor girl was recovered in the Old Sabzi Mandi area in Karachi two days after she went missing, and postmortem reports reveal that the girl was sexually assaulted before she succumbed to head injuries. The incident, however, reflects the sorry state of affairs in our country.
We have witnessed a similar public outrage in 2018 after the gruesome murder of a six-year-old victim named Zainab, which resulted in authorities taking some legal initiatives such as approving the Zainab Alert, Response, and Recovery Bill in 2019. The bill aimed at ensuring the protection of minors while a helpline was established to facilitate the process of reporting the cases of missing children. What remains problematic is the fact that despite improvising the legal mechanisms, real changes have hardly occurred. Every new case of child abuse and murder gives rise to a new justice trend on social media, but it seems that we are still too far from the time when we would not have to protest or beg for the safety of our children.
While several recommendations can still be discussed, every time such heinous crimes are committed, the nation tends to lose hope in the justice system, and the future of our children seems even more blurred. The authorities genuinely need to learn from their mistakes, and must implement such harsh laws that would force anyone to think twice before committing such inhumane acts. The security and life of our children can no more be compromised.
Nayab Iqbal
Karachi
Published in The Express Tribune, September 11th, 2020.
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