Protecting children

Equal access to justice is vital if we are to bring down the number of child victims in the country.

The true measure of a society is how it protects the most vulnerable amongst it. By this measure, we have truly failed. According to human rights attorney Zia Ahmed Awan, 1,113 children were murdered in Pakistan in the last calendar year and a couple of hundred more than that were injured. That gives us a child murder rate that is among the highest in the world. There are many reasons why we have such a horrendous record of protecting our children. Over 60 per cent of Pakistan’s population is under the age of 25 and most of them live in poverty. This puts them at higher risk, both of being murdered by parents who are mired in poverty, as well as by those who are part of child trafficking rings, employ child labour or simply prey on the weak and powerless.

These statistics are a damning indictment of an uncaring justice system. How many children, employed in the homes of the wealthy and powerful as domestic labour, have been killed for minor transgressions that upset their employers? Indeed, it was not that long ago that Shazia Masih, a minor working as a maid, was killed and the murder hushed up because her employer was a prominent lawyer. A bout of media attention was not enough to bring her killers to justice. Her employer was acquitted of murder after the authorities conveniently forgot to bring her original autopsy report to the trial and the police presented conflicting statements.

For the rich murderers of children to even be brought to trial is rare enough. Usually such cases are simply ignored and the police refuse to file FIRs or blood money is paid to the impoverished families of the victims. Equal access to justice is vital, though far from the only step that can be taken, if we are to bring down the number of child victims in the country. Universal access to education, strict implementation of child labour laws and living up to our other treaty obligations under the Convention of the Rights of the Child would all help in making us a more just and humane society.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2013.