THE incidents of sexual assaults and consequent deaths of children have reportedly reached at peak and parents have been forced to take extra care to safeguard their children on their own as bodies working for the child safety have been found either dysfunctional or lacking the required facilities to provide protection to them.

Experts believe that the only way to prevent child abuse in all its forms and manifestations is to implement KP Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010 in letter and spirit.

Public hanging and releasing its video, as demanded by families of victims and a section of the society, they understand will further aggravate the situation. “The fear of being caught to get killed either by parents or death sentence handed down by law would only end up the abusers with more killing cases of the innocent children,” the experts observed.

A report on sexual abuse of children in KP, submitted to National Assembly’s standing committee on child protection, revealed that 252 cases of child abuse were registered in Abbottabad and in 80 per cent cases, close relatives and family members were involved. Compared to 2018, the year 2019 witnessed a surge in child abuse cases including assaults, rape, attempts and murder.

Experts and rights activists said that pedophilia (child abuse) had been rampant in the society since long and several factors were responsible for the practice including social and cultural taboos, which prevented parents to report such cases. They said that people were trying to hide the child abuse incident to save the family honour.

Wajid Rahim, a rights activist in Peshawar, told this scribe that the reports saying hat around two million children were on the street arose one big question as to where one would find them to be, either in workplaces as labourers or home servants where they were exposed to sexual abuse or various types of harassments. He said that he was currently conducting a private survey in posh areas of Peshawar where he found six out of 10 homes employing boys and girls from age 10 to 13 picked up by employers from their hometowns.

“I have interviewed hundreds of them. Every next boy or girl says that his/her parents have handed him/her to the employer, who pays up Rs1,500 to 2,000 to their parents at the end of every month. Several of them shared startling details of being sexually assaulted by wards, watchmen, drivers of the employers and in a few cases occasionally by employers and shopkeepers. Surprisingly enough, the victims in majority cases found to be close but poor relatives of the employers,” said Mr Rahim.

He said that parents of such unfortunate children remained unaware of the real condition and the inhuman treatment being meted out to them. He said that parents willingly handed over their children to the employers thinking that they would be safe and fetch them earnings.

Imran Takar, another rights activist, said that the legal and autonomous positions in the KP Child Protection and Welfare Commission had been lying vacant since 2014. He said that quarterly meeting, a legal requirement for reviewing the progress, had not been held, system of case management was week, only three child courts were present in the entire province, helpline was dysfunctional, website was outdated, despite claim of over 1,000 child protection committees not a single one was active, and no child protection unit had been set up as laid down in the law.

“Forensic lab is a must in KP for strengthening the case management system. Parents, teachers, religious scholars, local elders, journalists, rights activists and child psychologists should put their heads and hands together to root out the evil,” said Mr Takar.

Ijaz Khan, deputy chief of the Child Protection and Welfare Commission, when contacted, said that KP government had allocated over Rs40 million and recently released 25 per cent to CPWC to be spent on the establishment of 12 child protection units and seven more child courts would also be set up at divisional level.

He said that the CPWC had compiled complete data of over 30,000 cases occurred from May 31, 2011 to March 31, 2019. He said that it included all kinds of child abuse from corporal punishment, kidnap, sexual harassment and murder.

“We have compiled the data with the support of our donors. Now government has released funds for strengthening CPWC, quarterly meetings are being held on regular basis. The CPWC has rehabilitated over 1,000 children during the last five months,” said Mr Khan.

He said that they had the best case management system as it examined the cases from every possible perspective. “Our helpline 1121 is fully operational and our website is update carrying information pertaining to CPWC operations. Regular staff is being hired to speed up our activities regarding awareness drives on child protection measures,” he added.

The deputy chief of CPWPC has a plan to extend the measures of child protection to all districts of the province and also has set up around 1061 child protection committees (CPC) being fully functional. He said that parents were encouraged to report the case to police stations and CPC members as CPWC provided every kind of assistance including legal and financial to the victim children.

“The position of the chief of CWPC has been advertised and after due process, the quarters concerned would appoint the right person. The CPWC has forwarded several suggestions to government for further improvement and effectiveness of our system to ensure child protection. We want education authorities should include the child protection as a separate subject in the school curriculum so that parents, teachers and the society could know about the rights, care and moral education of the children,” said Mr Khan.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2020