Zainab Alert app launched

Online facility will strengthen efforts against child abuse

ISLAMABAD:

The Federal Human Righrs Ministry on Thursday launched the Zainab Alert Application on the Pakistan Citizen’s Portal.

The public web portal will allow people to track and trace the progress of cases apart from reporting of child abuse incidents.

The application, dedicated to a child abuse victim, helps strengthen efforts to track and trace missing children and child abuse cases.

The app was developed following the recent enactment of the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act (ZARRA) in March 2020.

Zainab Ansari was a seven-year-old girl who had been abducted in Kasur in 2018 as she went to her Quran class. Her murderer, 24-year-old Imran Ali, was determined to be a serial killer responsible for at least seven previous murders of prepubescent girls.

Zainab’s father, Amin Ansari, attended the event as the guest of honour and launched the application.

Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari elaborated on the progress made on implementing the act, as well as widespread awareness campaigns to sensitise people about the rights of children and attitudes and behaviours that can help create a safe and enabling environment for them.

Deputy Secretary of the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit, Adil Saeed Safi, explained the technical aspects of the system. He said that the app utilises technologies and such as artificial intelligence, facial recognition, geo-tagging and mapping, apart from real-time progress tracking and alerts to streamline and strengthen response and recovery alerts.

A national reporting dashboard and a public web portal will be set up to allow the authorities and the citizens to track the progress of cases and check the prevalence of incidents and reporting across the country.

The system will alert DPOs and RPOs through their respective dashboards, as well as through SMS notifications.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2020.