K-P to revive child protection units

Minister says govt to hire 96 people for their operation

PESHAWAR:

With dozens of incidents of sexual abuse against children registered with the social welfare department over the past five years, the provincial government on Friday said that it is working to revive the child protection units.

As the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly resumed on Friday, after a week-long recess, Social Welfare Minister Dr Hisham Inamullah said that they have amended the rules for the child protection unit and after endorsement from the provincial cabinet, they will be recruiting for 96 posts in the units to make them operational.

Responding to queries from lawmakers, he said that a law on child protection was passed in 2010, which envisioned the creation of child protection units across the province.

Four units were set up by UNICEF in 2011, while another eight were set up by other non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These 12 units operated until 2019, registering some 3,900 cases.

The minister said that on March 31, 2019, UNICEF handed over its four units to the government to run. Dr Inamullah said that after taking charge of the ministry, he started work to recruit vacant posts, including the chief protection officer.

He added that last year, the Finance Department had approved 96 posts in these units. But when they started the process, they ran into some problems with the rules. Now, the rules have been amended and will be presented to the cabinet for approval soon.

At this, members of the opposition protested the stalled child protection units and women’s Commission.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) lawmaker Nighat Orakzai said that those members of the house should be included in the standing committees and special committees who can give their time for the resolution of problems.

The Social Welfare Department said that it had registered 303 cases in the past five years. It said that they registered 49 cases of child sexual abuse in Abbottabad, followed by Mardan with 48 cases and Charsadda was third with 46 cases. Swabi had 43 cases, Bannu 27, Swat 23, Lower Dir 14, Buner 12, Chitral 11, Kohat nine, and Battagram nine.

The provincial capital of Peshawar only registered 12 cases during this time.

Of the 303 cases detected or registered by the Social Welfare Department, 296 cases involved boys and 97 involved girls. No cases of abuse were registered against people who are transgender.

The most number of boys abused in a single district was Charsadda with 35, while Abbottabad was top for the number of girls abused at 22 cases.

Murder in Mattani

The assembly on Friday referred to the murder of three young men in Mattni to the concerned committee for further action. Speaking on a point of order, the elected MPA from Frontier Region Muhammad Shoaib pointed to the brutal incident. He said that local authorities have been approached but if the aggrieved are not provided with justice, they will stage a sit-in outside the Governor House.

Khushdil Khan of the Awami National Party (ANP) said that despite the presence of security check posts in the area, the occurrence of such an incident was a matter of serious concern for all. He expressed the fear that currently the state of affairs are heading towards how the situation was in 2009. Khushdil warned that they could stage a protest outside the chief minister’s house if the security situation does not improve.

K-P Law Minister Sultan Khan conceded that it is the responsibility of the government to protect the lives and property of each citizen. He added that the government has no objection if the matter is referred to the concerned committee for necessary action.

Renaming Lakki Marwat

Dr Inamullah slammed criticism from opposition members on renaming Lakki Marwat.

Responding to a challenge from an MMA lawmaker, Dr Inamullah was adamant that the name of the district will change with the chief minister had issued a directive in this regard while he won’t resign either.

He said that his family had been elected 11 times while his opponent just once and that the 31,000 votes he obtained in the 2018 elections were comparable to the votes gathered by the other two members elected from the area.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 25^th, 2020.