ON Friday, the National Assembly passed the Zainab Alert, Recovery and Response Bill. While recognising the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution, lawmakers felt it necessary to create a new law for “missing and abducted children” given the “high risk of violence, exploitation, abuse, trafficking, rape or death”. Tabled by the Human Rights Ministry, the bill is named after Zainab Ansari, who was brutally raped and killed in Kasur three years ago. The child’s murder sparked protests across the country, demanding her killer be brought to justice. In 2015, the presence of a large, well-connected paedophile ring in the city made headlines after hundreds of videos depicting the sexual abuse of children surfaced. While the sexual abuse and exploitation of children is not something new in our society — or indeed, any society — it has come to the forefront of public discourse through greater frequency in reporting in recent years. In Pakistan, Kasur has remained at the centre of the storm. In 2018, the police arrested four people for purchasing minor girls for prostitution. In 2019, protests erupted once again when the tortured bodies of three abducted boys were recovered. And just last week, the mother of a 12-year-old girl filed a complaint against her husband for allowing another man to sexually abuse the child for Rs500. 

There are countless other examples which never make the headlines, and those that do are often quickly forgotten. If the bill is passed by the Senate, offenders will be handed life imprisonment, along with a fine of Rs1m, as maximum punishment. Additionally, a helpline for missing children will be established; a Child Protection Advisory Board set up; and action taken against police officials who delay investigations, as seen in the case of 10-year-old Farishta, when Islamabad police dismissed her family’s cries to register an FIR for several days since she went missing. Since the bill only covers the Islamabad Capital Territory, it is of critical importance that the provinces now take up the issue.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2020