Daily Express Islamabad selected for most frequent coverage. PHOTO: FILE
In Pakistan preventing violence against children and delivering justice is a challenging task. It is estimated that every day, nearly eight children become victim of sexual abuse in the country.
Speakers at the Child Friendly Newspaper Award 2013 ceremony organised by Sahil, an NGO, on Tuesday at a local hotel expressed concern over challenges being faced by victims of child sexual abuse to live in society with pride and honour.
Sahil Executive Director Manizeh Bano, shared the story of an 11-year-old girl who was raped by her maternal uncle. The abuser threatened to kill her and her youngest sister if she told anyone. When he assaulted her a second time, he was caught red-handed.
The family registered an FIR but it took years to get justice. “The most difficult thing for the girl was to reveal the incident in front of all the male judges,” said Bano. Her father said to her mother that she should have just killed her when she came to know about the incident, she added. “Now she is 14, she is still traumatized and still waiting for justice.”
Child protection needs to be dealt with in a transnational and national context through cooperation among the government as well as the private sector and the media, she stated.
On the occasion, Sahil launched two research reports on child sexual abuse cases reported last year, “Cruel Numbers Report 2013” and a “Five Years Analysis Report” to project trends in the last five years. A total of 3,002 cases were reported in 2013.
Daily Express Islamabad was first in the national category for doing the most stories on child sexual abuse. Other newspapers that got awards were Daily Waqt Lahore in regional and Daily Sobh Karachi in the local category.
Sahil also awarded community organisations and schools that spread child protection messages to 730,000 community members and 350,000 children.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 19th, 2014.
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My congratulations on the reward that you truly deserved. May I tell you one thing; I been reader of 'The News Int'l' for a long long time and shifted to tribune recently (may be a year ago) only because of its concern for Human Rights.