In Faisalabad district, 118 adolescents were raped in the last 10 months.
Among the victims, two were strangled. The accused in these two cases were arrested by the police and sent to jail.
Parents all over the district are naturally under the grip of fear and have become extra vigilant in the face these dreadful incidents.
In the cases registered by the police in the district, no accused has been convicted so far. It is being alleged that the main reason behind zero convictions is “the fact that the police did not collect evidence in the cases”.
According to the data obtained by the Express Tribune from police sources, the highest number of the incidents took place in five towns of Faisalabad district in Madina Town division where 29 children were abused and a teenager was strangled.
Twenty-seven incidents, the second highest number, took place within the limits of Iqbal Town Division while 22 children were abused in Jaranwala division.
The fourth largest number of cases occurred in Saddar division where 21 children were molested and a teenager killed.
The Lyallpur Town Division of the city limits witnessed 17 incidents of rape of children.
Only 60 people were arrested after the police registered cases against about 150 accused while in most of the cases the accused were out of the reach of the police.
According to police statistics, in most of the cases registered, the families of the teenagers have reconciled.
In this regard, the citizens said that the government should organize seminars to create awareness in urban and rural areas to prevent such incidents so that awareness among the citizens could be raised and such incidents could be prevented.
In this regard, Rao Zafar Iqbal, an advocate of the Supreme Court, said that the main reason for this was the moral decay in the society and failure to punish the criminals.
In the cases that the police make, required evidence is not collected on a scientific basis, nor case files completed and presented in the courts to punish the culprits.
Police say that parents go for reconciliation in the cases, and, therefore, the sentences are not passed. Sahil, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working for the protection of children's rights, stated in its annual report released some months’ ago that an average of eight children are sexually and physically abused daily in the country.
Sahil's Coordinator Ansar Sajjad suggested that child safety cells be set up in every district of Punjab to prevent violence against children and provide free assistance. An awareness campaign to protect children from sexual violence should be run under an effective strategy and new laws for children should be made, while the existing laws should be improved.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 12th, 2021.
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