The global theme of this year’s World Mental Health Day was “Mental Health of Young People in a Changing World”. Pakistan Association for Mental Health (PAMH), however, chose to address the issue in a local context, i.e., the sexual abuse of very young people.

The chilling news of the abduction, rape and murder of very young girls and the molestation of young boys for pornography appears almost every day in our newspapers. The Supreme Court took suo moto notice of the case of young Zainab from Kasur, who went through a ‘loving’ abduction, followed by rape and brutal murder. The three-step action has since been regularly reported in the media. The third step, murder, is a recent phenomenon. The case of Zainab became a high-profile news, got wide publicity and the culprit was found guilty and punished by hanging. But what happened to the cases of Safia, 6, Shamsa, 8 (raped and killed), and the 2,332 child abuse victims in the first half of the current year in Punjab alone that this newspaper editorially mentioned, quoting data from Sahil, an NGO, (September 1, 2018).

There have been some other cases.

For too long, governments have hemmed and hawed on taking steps to prevent childhood trauma, with disastrous consequences. The time to act is now

Six-year-old Sitara, who disappeared while returning from school. She used to walk to school a furlong away. The family living in a suburban locality of a big city searched all over for her and eventually went to the police station. It was 5pm. They were told to wait as the person in charge had gone out on a case. At 9pm, a complaint was ‘registered’ but not an FIR. They promised arrest and interrogation of those reported as suspects.

The next morning, police informed the family that a young girl wearing a blue shirt had been found dead behind a bush. It was Sitara.

Another 12-year-old, Sehrish, was subjected to repeated sexual assault by a domestic servant under threat to be killed if she spoke to anyone. She lived with the trauma and grew up to be diagnosed with a personality disorder.

In Kasur, a famous gang of child abusers of young boys was busted in 2015. The cases have been followed by various organisations. The gang, allegedly in collaboration with local elite/police, was raping young boys and making videos for the international pornography market. And the sorry state of their court hearing, including acquittal of arrested culprits, has been documented by no less than a government agency.

“The acquittal of the accused persons, despite video evidence, showed that the cases were pursued ineptly,” says the report ‘Kasur: The Horror Prevails’ by the National Commission for Human Rights. The recent cases of minors who were murdered after being subjected to rape in Kasur city overshadowed the Hussainwala child abuse incident. “Sadly, the recommended free legal aid services were not provided to the victims.”

While we were deliberating the protective measures to be taken for sexual abuse, the tragedy of the Army Public School was recalled where an unprecedented act of the murder of 132 young, innocent children, was big news. How has the society and the government of the day reacted to the great tragedy? The families and the society are still mourning and demanding justice.

The response of the then government was to call a meeting of psychiatrists and psychologists in all the provinces and prepare a plan of action. As far as I know, nothing happened. What happened was an order was given to raise the boundary walls of schools and, oddly enough, army personnel were pictorially shown teaching young boys and girls to handle real weapons. Such an act is counter-productive as most children will forget this brief training but few may grow up to acquire and use lethal weapons illegally.

It is a fact that 50 percent of sexual abusers are those known to the family. No amount of infrastructural protection will help. It is the child and the child alone who can save himself /herself from criminal assault.

It is our considered opinion at PAMH that health and hygiene should be made a compulsory subject at primary and secondary school levels. The curriculum should be culturally relevant and acceptable and focused on health education.

We have tried to focus on this issue several times in the past decade but failed. This probably is the time when sensitising children could be achieved through making health and hygiene as course material, which should include basic anatomy, physiology, preventable diseases and a healthy lifestyle (gutka is another recent phenomenon affecting young people).

Other detailed recommendations from the PAMH include:

• In the critical area of sensitisation of children, education and information about health and hygiene, including possible sexual abduction, should be provided from an early age, keeping in view cultural sensitivity and social and religious values. It may be necessary to widely circulate the syllabus for consultation and consensus among different sections of society that include current educational establishments in Pakistan, i.e., private and public schools. The syllabus should have agreed dates for review and re-evaluation in the light of feedback by different stakeholders.

The sensitisation campaign be undertaken to create awareness about a healthy lifestyle among children, the vulnerabilities, risk factors and identification of physical, emotional and sexual abuse and neglect. It should also highlight the negative impact — the emotional fallout on young minds.

• In the legal and investigation domain, the process of lodging complaints with the police should be simpler, keeping in mind the sensitivity and confidentiality of the issue.

Needless to say, the police should be trained on how to conduct interviews with child victims and their families, without causing further embarrassment. The assessment of need for counselling and legal aid, also protective services, should be established and provided by the state.

• The culture of blaming the victim must be discouraged at all levels, including within the family, media and legal community. Serious efforts should be made to implement the existing laws for protection of children’s rights while lacunas in current laws should be addressed as a priority. In this area , the National Action Plan for Children can be revisited.

• The media, too, has a lead role to play in the sensitisation campaign and must develop its own code of conduct for responsible and ethical reporting while commenting on these sensitive issues. All TV channels should allocate time for public service messages free of cost. In fact, it is advisable that the government should launch a separate TV channel on health, education and recreation for children.

• We must urge the new government to effectively enforce the clauses on child pornography, child abuse and child seduction under Section 48, 50 and 53 of the Child Protection and Welfare Act and section 377-B of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The Australian prime minister offered a national apology to child sexual abuse victims and their parents on the front lawn of the Australian parliament a few weeks ago. On the contrary, we in Pakistan have failed our children. Currently, a review of syllabi is being proposed. It is time to allocate certain hours for teaching health and hygiene at primary and secondary levels.

We expect our prime minister to take notice of the barbarous acts our children are being subjected to and fulfil his promise to the children of Pakistan.

The writer is President of Pakistan Association for Mental Health

Published in Dawn, EOS, December 9th, 2018