Innocence lost: 'Punjab police apathy fueling rise in child abuse cases'

Little recourse to justice erodes victims’ faith in the system, allowing abusers to commit crimes with impunity

LAHORE: As police investigators struggle to make substantial headway in the sexual abuse and murder of four children in Kasur, child protection experts have blamed the rise in such incidents on a wider culture of apathy among law enforcers.

According to them, police officials’ lack of interest in solving these cases and their lack of training in handling such complaints and investigations have eroded citizens’ faith in the entire law enforcement department.

“It is shocking how lax both the government and police force is when it comes to cases of sexual abuse, particularly those where the victims are children,” said Advocate Atif Adnan Khan, who heads the legal department of child rights NGO Sahil. “A disregard for laws and policies that guarantee children’s rights and safety, and the lack of reforms in both the police department and the judicial system have contributed to the growing impunity with which these crimes are committed,” he told The Express Tribune.



“Because of the prevalent police attitudes and prosecution loopholes, the victims and their families have lost faith in the justice system. As a result, the perpetrators of these hideous crimes keep committing them with impunity, confident that they will walk free every time,” Atif added. “What is worse is that this reinforces a culture of victim-blaming, further increasing the stigma those who suffer at the hands of these criminals face.”

There is perhaps no better example of the callousness with which many police officials approach complaints of missing children than the case of 12-year-old Muhammad Imran, one of the five minors from Kasur’s Chunian area who went missing and were later found murdered in the last five months. According to Imran’s family, Imran has been missing since he left home on June 12.

“I reported the incident at my local police station promptly,” said Imran’s mother Kubra Bibi, who has been distraught for the last three months. “At first, they told me to look around the various shrines in the area and the centres run for destitute homeless children.”

“But when that did not work, the police told us to contact a pir [faith healer]. They said he would be able to find my son’s whereabouts using his spells,” she told The Express Tribune.

In most of these cases that generate little interest or sympathy from police authorities, the victims hail from extremely poor backgrounds.  In Imran’s case, his father is a labourer. But the same is true for the other children from his neighbourhood who went missing and were later found dead.

According to police officials, the body of only one of them was recovered intact. The other three, including, Imran were found in a mutilated state with much of their parts missing. “My only appeal now is for the authorities to recover all of my son’s body so that I can bury him in peace,” said Kubra.

Kasur in particular has been a hotbed of child abuse cases in recent years. In 2015, reports that dozens of children were sexually abused while being filmed emerged from the district’s Hussainwala area and triggered widespread uproar. Then, in January last year, reports of the rape and murder of eight-year-old Zainab led to nationwide calls for a more stringent approach to eradicating child abuse.

Despite that campaign, however, the number of such incidents occurring across the country remains shocking. According to figures released by Sahil, more than 1,300 cases of child sexual abuse have been reported between January and June this year alone.

In addition to inadequate judicial provisions and lack of police interest, child protection activists and experts also point to a lack of awareness among parents as a reason for the rise in such cases. “Both children and their parents are shockingly uninformed on child safety. It is true that the government has not organised any drives to raise awareness, but even teachers and other professionals who work with children are ill-informed,” said Advocate Atif.

When contacted, Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CPWB) Punjab Chairperson Sarah Ahmed said her department will soon carry out a comprehensive awareness campaign at schools, madrassahs and other public locations. Regarding Kasur, she said the bureau has set up a regional office in the district and will soon set up various committees whose performance will be reported back to the chief minister.



The Kasur deputy commissioner, Sarah said, has been recruiting volunteers for child protection initiatives in the more remote areas of the district. The chief minister has announced a Rs5 million reward for those who report child abusers. “Action is also being carried out against negligent police officials,” she added.

Meanwhile, District Police Officer (DPO) Zahid Nawaz Marwat, who oversaw the Zainab murder investigation, has been made head of the joint investigation team probing the recent child murder cases in Kasur. Although no culprits have been identified so far, police have ruled out the involvement of any organised gang or child pornography ring in the recent cases, Marwat said.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 25^th, 2019.