A collective failure

It happens in homes, on street corners, in shops, fields, schools, madrassas and shrines. The perpetrators are strangers or known to the victim. The crime is sometimes reported, often not. Justice is usually not served. The victims who live on the streets, in villages or towns, in big houses or small, all join the agonisingly long list of sexually abused children in Pakistan. There are both boys and girls on this list. Minors as young as a few years old to those in their late teens. They often do not receive any help for the physical and psychological damage done to them and must suffer in silence or face shame and scrutiny, which only adds insult to injury. According to figures reported by Sahil, a child advocacy group, there has been a 36 per cent increase in child sexual abuse cases since last year. Sahil has curated the data from reports in local English and Urdu language press and is of the opinion that the actual crime rate is two to three times more than this.

These are rough times for the children of Pakistan. On top of the threat of terrorists who no longer consider educational institutions to be off-limits are concerning reports of an increase in kidnappings. But sexual abuse is a threat Pakistani children have faced long before society became unsafe in other ways. Often under reported and largely ignored, this crime has gone on unchecked with children being forced into early marriage, sold and trafficked or attacked in their own homes by acquaintances or family members. We are all responsible for this culture in which such widespread abuse goes on without being prosecuted since this injustice happens because of a desire to neglect that which frightens us. One may feel pity for a street child thinking that he or she has been a victim while not realising that our own children may have suffered. We often find ourselves in the terrible situation where laws against child abuse are not implemented even where they exist. Our children deserve better yet we are consistently failing them year after year.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 22^nd,  2016.

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