Punjab’s kids are unsafe, whether home or not

Alarming surge in rape and murder cases across Lahore

LAHORE: Child abuse seems to have taken Punjab in its grip like a terrible epidemic as cases of physical abuse, sexual exploitation and the murder of minors have witnessed an alarming surge.

A worrying number of such incidents have occurred in the provincial capital, in particular.



In a recent incident, a 10-year-old boy was abused by a suspect in Badami Bagh. The victim, Ghulam Mustafa, had reportedly gone to a nearby shop from where Abdul Rehman allegedly lured him to a secluded area and abused him. Police have registered an FIR against the accused.

Just a few days earlier on June 17, a six-year-old girl was raped and killed, allegedly by her neighbor, in Harbanspura. The victim, a resident of Rasheedpura, had gone to a nearby house to bring some ice. When she failed to return home, her family panicked and started searching for her. The next day, the victim’s relatives went knocking on the doors of neighbours and the suspect fled from one of the houses as soon as he saw them.

The victim’s family searched his room and recovered the body of the girl. Police investigations revealed that the suspect had strangled the minor after raping her. He was ultimately killed in a subsequent police encounter.

On May 10, a three-year-old boy was kidnapped and murdered after having been subjected to sexual abuse in Hanjarwal. The suspect in this incident was again a neighbour of the victim.

The boy was electrocuted after being molested to make his death look like an accident. The accused dumped his body in a drain afterwards. In another incident, the police arrested a 60-year-old man for raping a 10-year-old child in Kot Lakhpat.

Home (un)safe

Besides sexual violence and abuse, children are being subjected to physical torture and even murdered in their own homes.

On Friday, a woman strangled her stepdaughter in Shalimar.

On June 10, a woman killed her stepson in Baghbanpura. The suspect Shabana had abducted the victim, strangled him and hid the body in a cupboard for three days. Later, she dumped the body at a neighbour’s shop.

On May 6, a man had murdered his stepson and dumped the body in a drain in Sanda near Band Road. Suspect Ali Shan confessed his crime and told police he did not want to raise that boy as his own.

Data compiled by Sahil, an organisation working on violence against children, showed that a total 4,139 cases, including abduction, missing children and child marriages were reported in 2016. According to the data, at least 11 children suffer through physical or sexual abuse throughout Pakistan on a daily basis.

Sahil’s data shows an increase of 10% in violence as compared to last year.

Punjab is in the unenviable position of having the highest number of cases of violence against children. As many as 2,676 cases of abuse were reported from the province, followed by 987 incidents in Sindh, 166 in Balochistan, 156 in ICT, 141 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and nine in Azad Jammu Kashmir. Four cases were reported from Gilgit-Baltistan.

Commenting on the surge in violence against children, spokesperson for Child Welfare and Protection Bureau Waseem Abbass said kids were an easy target. He said intolerance and violent behaviour was behind the surge in these cases.



Iftikhar Mubarak, an activist associated with the Child Rights Movement and Child Advocacy Network, said different factors trigger sexual and physical violence against minors.

“It is easy to trap and harm them as they are dependent and immature. Children are unable to understand and are easily lured,” he remarked.

Commenting on torture by parents, he said some mothers or fathers consider children as their property. “That is the reason some are sold by parents or brutally tortured over small issues,” he said.

Mubarak said it was necessary to sensitise the masses, particularly parents, about the rights of children and the dangers faced by them.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2017.