Young sufferers of violence

As journalists working in the field, most often we are so consumed with gathering facts and figures that at times we need to pause, step back and look at the larger picture.

The data revealed in a quite recently released report  by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) — titled, Hidden in Plain Sight: A Statistical Analysis of Violence against Children — however, seems to be calling out on Pakistan to  look at the larger picture, that of violence against its own children.

While the report enlists details of physical, sexual, emotional and other kinds of violence perpetrated against children in Pakistan, like it does for other 189 countries, it also highlights attitudes towards violence. The horrifying data on violence against children indicates that around 3,000 homicide victims up to the age of 19 were reported in the country in just 2012. Add to this murderous figure the complex dynamics of a weak system characterised by deprivation of basic necessities, social injustice, an ailing economy, a flawed legal cover and we have the perfect recipe for disaster.

But violence has increasingly become so deep-rooted in our society that it is now more than a graphic image on research journals. It has become a reality, a gross reality in the lives of our children. Of the 15 to 19-year-old girls it surveyed, the report says 30 per cent were victims of physical violence since the age of 15.

Hold on to that thought now because the nightmare has just begun.

Violence is just one part of the injustice we so carelessly let our children go through. The other, perhaps even largely invisible, part of this injustice is the attitude in the society towards violence. More than 50 per cent of the surveyed 15 to 19-year-old girls believed that a husband or partner is justified in beating or hitting his wife or partner under certain circumstances, with almost the same percentage of girls in the very same age bracket opting to stay silent upon facing physical and/or sexual violence.

Once upon engaging with a young 17-year-old victim of marital abuse, I was startled by how amused she was while recollecting her experiences. I wondered if it was lack of realisation of what she had gone through owing to her tender age or whether it was out of sheer helplessness. But no, this was her way of coping with what she had endured. In a society where being a victim of violence and abuse is a much bigger taboo than having committed such a crime in the first place, this is how innocent victims cope. They remain silent, muffle their cries, rationalise their abuse and laugh it away.

Pakistan needs to call a timeout and have a good long look at the larger picture.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2014.