Opinion

Now or never

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

Arshad Mahmood August 24, 2015

The writer is a child rights activist and development practitioner with a Masters in Human Rights from the London School of Economics. He tweets @amahmood72

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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COMMENTS (9)

Zahid Hussain Satti | 9 years ago | Reply Great effort to highlight the issue, Government of Pakistan must take serious note on the said issue and make sure to give death penalties to the responsible criminals and also give penalties to the police officials who are responsible to prevent this type of crimes from the societies. I think society and law enforcement agencies are the responsible for the Kasoor incident. As a human being we should keep an eye on our society and keep inform law enforcement organization pertaining to crimes on regular basis, and law enforcement agencies should take serious note on the complaints received from responsible citizens.

miqdad | 9 years ago | Reply You are very right its now or never, We already took a long time to accept it as an issue and it does exist in our society.Pakistan signed in 2001 and ratified in 2011 Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography but it is an urgent need that it should be reflected in the state policies and laws. In 2005 Pakistan devised the National Plan of Action for ten years whereby the NPA against Child Sexual Abuse & Exploitation was also annexed which was talking about the Prevention, Protection, Recovery & Rehabilitation and Participation of children in decision making, but later on fortunately or unfortunately due to 18th amendment it could not be implemented and the issues of child rights were the subject of provinces. I am agree with you its now time the provinces should legislate and show responsibility to deal the issues of child protection and their rights...

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Yasir khawaja | 9 years ago | Reply Excellent surgical analysis by the writer Mr. Arshad Mahmood who come-up with some strong recommendations’ for the provincial government. This is the high time that government should take strong action and at ensure Enactment of Pending Bills related to Child Rights. ie The Punjab Commission on the Rights of the Child. Otherwise Violation of children’s rights is common, but most of the children are subjected to torture in working places and educational institutions, sexual exploitation and abuses etc. in urban areas in general and rural areas of Pakistan in particular. The main reason behind this is lack of education, non-implementation of laws regarding children’s rights and irresponsible attitude on part of the government. There is need of proper and immediate action for all the provincial governments so that the increasing trends of violence against children can be curbed.

Sajjad | 9 years ago | Reply Yes, this is the high time to stand for our children, absence of comprehensive laws and very week implementation of available laws is encouraging perpetrators to abuse children. It is observed that police do not cooperate in registration of FIR in such cases. Arrest of the offenders is very rare, if FIR was registered. This is also observed that parties get into compromise even without consent of child/victim. I’m not able to understand the hurdles in adopting suggested legislation, but this is like we are waiting for more similar incidents to evidence the existence of this issue. This is really strange that we do not have any policy to protect our children to form abuse/violence and to provide them with basic rights like health and education.

Waseem Abbas | 9 years ago | Reply Good job Sir... Your efforts for children's interest are appreciable. Protection is the basic right of child. now our government should be wake up and took some strong decision for bright and secure future. your's recommendations are thoughtful and praiseworthy. But our government is not serious about the dark future of the our children.

Waseem Abbas | 9 years ago | Reply Good job Sir... Your efforts for children's interest are appreciable. Protection is the basic right of child. now our government should be wake up and took some strong decision for bright and secure future.Your's recommendations are very thoughtful and praiseworthy.But our government is not serious about the dark future of the our children.

Mohammad Rafique Brohi | 9 years ago | Reply Thoughtful recommendations.... In the immediacy of such horrific of incidents, governments verbal assertion and assurances are natural phenomenon they fizzle out once the media spotlights vanishes. Given the legislation of child rights is critical, however, its not sufficient but its implementation/punishment in essence would create balancing deterrence. There are bunch of laws on plenty of subjects available. Nevertheless, with minimum effect on implementation count. Writer has rightly conceived systematic strengthening as the only way-forward to curb this menace.

Bbano | 9 years ago | Reply Protection is one of the fundamental right of every child, the government whose priority is metro bus, laptop and for them there is no life beyond that how can we expect from them to protect children whom they are failed to provide basic education and health facilities.

Meena | 9 years ago | Reply Excellent suggestions... hope the snail paced work done by the government is expedited and we see the society evolve through this on-going awareness by civil society rather than the regression in the society through denying such heinous crimes.

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