Now or never

If we don’t take current situation seriously and respond accordingly, we will never be able to protect our children

The horrific Kasur scandal reminds us as a nation that an ostrich approach to child sexual abuse is not going to work anymore. Both society and the government should accept that child abuse is a reality and that effective steps need to be taken to prevent it. The growing number of child sexual abuse cases in Pakistan and the Kasur scandal in particular, demand that federal and provincial governments prioritise the protection of children.

Civil society’s repeated attempts at highlighting child protection have never been taken seriously. Sahil, a national NGO working on child sexual abuse, reported 3,508 cases in 2014 — just the tip of the iceberg. Fifty-six per cent of these cases were reported from Punjab, with Kasur among the top 10 districts where most cases were reported. Sahil’s data further reveals that 445 cases have been reported in Kasur from 2012 to 2014.

Despite such reports being released annually, the overall state of the child protection infrastructure has never been a priority for successive governments and the current federal and provincial authorities are no exception. At present, only two provinces have child protection-specific legislation. There is the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Child Protection and Welfare Act 2010 and the Sindh Child Protection Act 2011. The Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act 2004 is quite limited and does not cover child protection issues comprehensively. Balochistan, the Islamabad Capital Territory, Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Fata have no child protection-specific legislation. This shows that there is a need to immediately introduce comprehensive child protection legislation across all federating units.

The federal government needs to enact the long-pending National Commission on the Rights of Children Bill 2015 and the Child Protection (Criminal Laws) Amendment Bill 2015. The Criminal Laws Amendment Bill 2015 should include maximum punishment of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, remission or pardon for paedophilia, rape and gang-rape convicts. Pakistan is already party to various international treaties, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Option Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Pornography, which bind it to legislate in accordance with these treaties.

The Punjab government should immediately approve the long-awaited Punjab Child Protection Policy and enact comprehensive legislation on the pattern of K-P Child Protection and Welfare Act 2010. It is also important to note that the Punjab Child Protection and Welfare Bureau, commonly misunderstood for a comprehensive child protection body, is limited to working for the welfare of destitute and neglected children only. There is a need to establish child protection systems across all districts of the province and this will be impossible without making sufficient budgetary allocations.

Child protection systems are made up of a set of components that if properly coordinated, can work together to strengthen the protective environment around each child. These components include a strong legal and policy framework for child protection, adequate budget allocations, multi-sectoral coordination, child-friendly preventive and responsive services, a child protection, oversight and regulation workforce, and data on child protection issues.

Awareness regarding how to protect oneself from abuse should be included in school curricula in a culturally sensitive manner. The media can play a vital role in fostering coordination with civil society and the government, which can create widespread awareness. Media organisations should ideally be allocating at least five per cent of their budgets for such initiatives, which can form the core of their corporate social responsibility function. Culturally and religiously appropriate material on the subject can be produced. Media in most countries have youth and children focused channels which are missing in Pakistan. Furthermore, schools can also play a major role in spreading awareness about child rights in general and child sexual abuse in particular.

There is a general feeling in Pakistan that we have failed our children. If we don’t take the current situation seriously and respond accordingly, we will never be able to protect our children.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th,  2015.

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