Kasur child abuse ring part two

Two years ago, Kasur was the epicentre of a major child sex abuse scandal which mobilised authorities, including the legislature, to respond with multiple arrests and a bill in 2016 to illegalise and make child sexual abuse, pornography and trafficking punishable by law. Here we are, now, in the wake of protests and vexation at authorities for failing to demonstrate concern over a similar matter. For the past several months, 10 bodies of children no older than 10 years of age have been found at home construction sites around Kasur, raped and discarded. The authorities have, evidently, failed in their duties of arresting criminals so that they may be tried under the new laws established in 2016. Although legislation exists for this and many other types of offenses against children, until law-enforcement agencies capture the culprits — the ones rightly implicated in the cases based on sound evidence — the laws are effectively useless.

The failure occurred not only in punishing culprits, but also in setting an effective example for them from the last major scandal in 2015. The authorities were unable to weaken the criminals’ resolve due to which they have discovered the bodies of innocent young children as young as five years old violently dumped at construction sites where they may be bulldozed around.

In order to prevent the child sex ring from expanding, and in the circumstance that the police have failed to protect children, we require serious intervention from more competent LEAs. Because of the police’s failure to arrest and prosecute offenders, the murders and dumped bodies continue to be discovered. Perhaps this points to a lack of empathy on the authorities’ part. When the fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters of the child victims are not given justice, they are right to take to the streets and exhort attention. It is sick, however, that they continue to be ignored by government officials and cannot garner support for authoritative action against the arrested.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 27^th, 2017.

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