LAHORE: A four-day police training workshop by the Lahore Police and the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau (CP&WB) concluded on Friday.

The workshop, held at the Police Lines, was aimed to train SHOs and police investigation officers with regard to dealing with child-based cases with impartiality and sensitivity.

CP&WB Director General Faiz Naeem Warraich, Chairperson Sarah Ahmad and Lahore DIG Inam Waheed were present.

The workshop for the Lahore-based police officers focused on the prevention of child abuse incidents, and violence against children.

Mr Waheed said that protecting and rescuing children from any kind of abuse was the legal and ethical responsibility of everyone in society. He said the issue of child sexual abuse particularly was something that he was striving to fight on a personal basis.

He said this collaboration will establish a system which would eventually uproot causes of child abuse in all forms. He thanked the CPWB for providing the police officers with training.

Chairperson Ms Ahmad said it was the first time the CP&WB and the Punjab police were working together for the prevention of child abuse in Punjab and said they would make Punjab free from child abuse.

“We want to raise awareness about our child rescue helpline number 1121 to help victims, and want the police to step forward with regard to disseminating this number in their areas,” she said.

Zaara Umer, in charge of mass awareness section in the CPWB, said the department had been running an awareness campaign among the people about child abuse.

She said parents were told that they should not send their children to strange areas and to neighbours houses where they were at risk of sexual abuse. Children should be consciously taught about who to trust.

She said after Lahore, the training would soon be replicated in 36 districts. She said recently in Kasur, around 300 schools were targeted and parents, students and teachers were all trained.

She said they had discovered that a huge communication gap existed between adults and children. Some of the parents blamed technology like Internet and phones for rising abuse cases, while others blamed technology for creating a gap.

She said an existing police culture that empathised little with the victim was being worked upon. She said police had been trained to develop ownership of their areas and to sensitise families residing there.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2019