Unlisted predators: ‘Paedophiles’ walk free amid rising child abuse

In the absence of an official database for paedophiles coupled with a weak legal system, child abuse cases lead to a very low conviction rate, posing a threat to millions of children across the country.

While countries in the west generate a database of sex offenders, and subsequently publish their photographs, placing restrictions on their mobility, employment, and financial access, offenders in Pakistan not only remain unlisted but are also easily acquitted due to errors and expediencies in their trials.

According to a report presented in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly, regarding cases of child sexual abuse during the past three years in Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan, only 5 per cent of the accused were convicted, while the remaining were either released due to improper investigations or were still awaiting decisions.

“Four to five thousand children are victims of sexual abuse every year in Pakistan,” said Miqdad Ali, a child rights activist, “but unfortunately no data or photographs exist at the national level for people to identify these predators and prevent them from harming more children.”

This is, despite the Zainab Alert Bill being passed in the National Assembly three years ago, which following eight-year-old Zainab’s rape and murder in Sukkur in 2018, strictly directed the relevant authorities to generate a list of accused sex offenders, in order to place socio-legal sanctions on them. The Bill, however, remains words on paper and awaits implementation.

The failure of the authorities to restrict movement of sex offenders has had serious repercussions in the past. In August last year, a rapist convicted in Rawalpindi, moved to Peshawar where he raped three minor girls before gruesomely killing two of them. Had there been public broadcasting of the criminal through government media avenues, perhaps the girls would have been alive today.

While K-P police prides itself in timely registering cases against all 365 accused sexual offenders in the past year, the conundrum remains that while these cases are being registered, most do not end in penalization of the offender.

“Even when cases are filed against the accused, most victims are forced to drop charges either due to financial constraints or because of the defendant's coercion”, says Dr Jahanzeb, Director General of Zainab Alert Force. He therefore highlights the dire need to prevent sexual abuse cases from happening in the first place, by creating a national level database of sexual offenders.

In light of the recent surge in cases of pedophilia in the province, the K-P Child Protection Act has undergone critical amendments, which in the absence of an official database for sex offenders, would allow restrictions to be placed on the employment and public access of child rapists.

According to Imran Takkar, a practiced children’s rights activist,” Under the new amendment, the names of accused child abusers would be regularly updated on the website of the Child Protection Commission, thereby preventing them from holding government office, entering public parks, and accessing educational institutions. He further added that it is now mandatory for employers to verify the criminal record of an individual from the Commission before offering them jobs.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2023.