KARACHI:
According to Nelson Mandela, the true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children. Child abuse is physical, sexual and psychological maltreatment of a child or any act that results in actual or potential harm to a child. This abuse can occur at a child’s own home or one belonging to any of his relatives, or at his school, or the workplace. Moreover, child neglect – a kind of abuse – also runs rampant in our society and is said to have occurred when a child’s basic needs are not actually met.
Child abuse and child neglect can have a devastating and long-lasting impact on a child. Such mistreatments can affect their health as well as physical and mental development. For some of the children who have been abused, neglected, shamed or humiliated, even the very survival becomes difficult.
Factors contributing to child maltreatment in a society include economic inequality; the lack of social safety nets; and cultural behaviours encouraging harsh physical punishment of children. Besides, age, sex and family background also fall among the reasons for a child’s exploitation.
Globally, 500 million to 1.5 billion children suffer violence every year while 73 million to 150 million girls are subjected to abuse every year. In Pakistan everyday more than six children, on an average, are subjected to sexual abuse; and out of the total reported cases, 62% are from rural areas and 38% from urban areas. Not too long ago, the rape and murder of seven-year-old Zainab Ansari from Kasur, a city in Punjab, had left the entire nation shocked. While Zainab’s culprit was caught and hanged, the punishment failed to serve as a deterrent and the frequency of child abuse cases rather increased.
So what should be done at the individual and collective level to arrest the heinous practice of child abuse? There is need to devise a comprehensive strategy at the level of the government to deal with the growing menace. While parents need to exercise all the care and caution in nurturing their children, the government must ensure implementation on the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act 2019 whereby the new federal agency created under the mentioned law – called ZARRA – should work on reducing child kidnapping, improving recovery, and increasing awareness against sexual abuse of children across the country through media and school syllabus. There is also the need for the government to focus on psychological treatment of child abusers and those with such evil tendencies. Remember our children are our future, and we cannot see them spoilt.
Sorath Ghaffar
Karachi
Published in The Express Tribune, July 2nd, 2021.
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