Protecting children

More effective complaint lines, promise of anonymity to those reporting and other measures widely used would help

A new report funded by Unicef, “The State of Children in Pakistan”, released by the Children’s Complaint Office in Islamabad, exposes just how many risks millions of children in our country face. These risks include those presented by sexual abuse. The report notes that child sexual abuse crimes are widespread, but due to social stigma only rarely reported. This, of course, means many of the perpetrators are able to get away scot-free because the justice system does not move and no action is taken against them.

There is an urgent need to change this reality. Apart from creating greater social awareness, we need specific laws dealing with child sexual abuse to be put into place so that the police are better empowered to tackle these matters and follow a set outline of action. While there are certain laws that attempt to deal with this serious predicament, these are somewhat vague and do not address the problem head on. According to the child sexual abuse watchdog body, Sahil, there were 3,508 cases of abuse reported from across the country in 2014, with 56 per cent of these cases taking place in Punjab. It is a fact that hundreds more such incidents probably go unreported with the families of children themselves engaged in cover-ups and reluctant to make the details public to protect themselves from social stigma. The insensitivity of the police and the judicial system in handling such matters does not help.

The Kasur episode serves as a reminder that we need change. Provincial governments need to plan out precisely how this can happen. More effective complaint lines, the promise of anonymity to those reporting abuse and other measures widely used by many countries would help. It is time we brought these into play, given how common child sexual abuse is and the need to stop it before more children are pulled into its vicious grip and scarred both emotionally and physically by the violence committed against them. Such violence needs to be punished.

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

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