Rampant child abuse: Schools to ensure students leave with parents

Ministry of Education says directives will come into effect immediately

RAWALPINDI:

Given the alarming rise in cases of sexual abuse of teenage boys and girls in Punjab, the Ministry of Education has stopped the heads of private and public schools across the province from letting the students go out of the premises during recreational and school hours.

The ministry has ordered that the principals of all government and private schools should post security guards and watchmen at the main gate during off time and not allow the children to go out of the gate until their parents or siblings come to pick them up from school.

The directives will come into effect straight away, a circular stated.

Further, in the circular, issued by the Ministry of Education, it has been ordered that until the children leave school, the watchmen, naib qasids and a teacher / focal person should be present in the educational institutions.

The ministry has issued instructions to the district and tehsil education officers across Punjab to convey the contents of the circular to the school heads immediately, seeking a report on its implementation by July 25.

These directives will be immediately implemented in the educational institutions of the entire four hilly tehsils of the Rawalpindi district, including Murree, Kotli Sattian and Kahuta, where schools were currently open. It would be implemented in other schools after the end of the summer vacations.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Education has given orders to strictly implement these directives in private schools and has clarified that there will be zero tolerance in this regard.

Rawalpindi District Education Authority’s Chief Executive Officer Yaseen Baloch said: “This order has been enforced in the open educational institutions of the hilly tehsils of the district.”

In March this year, a report titled ‘Cruel Number’ by an NGO working for the protection of children in Pakistan revealed that a total of 4,253 cases of child sexual abuse were reported in 2022 from all parts of the country.

The report by Sahil indicated that the cases of child sexual abuse had increased by more than 33% as compared to 2021. In 2022, the reported cases of sexual abuse fell under the major categories of abduction (1,656 children), rape (422 children), sodomy (537 children), gang rape (75 children), and gang sodomy (156 children).

Based on the data, children between six to 15 years of age were most vulnersure able to child sexual abuse, in which more male than female victims were reported. Moreover, children up to five years of age were also sexually abused.

The geographical distribution of the data showed that of the total 4,253 cases, the majority of them were reported in Punjab. However, all other provinces also recorded cases of child abuse.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2023.