PESHAWAR, Jan 11: A child protection group has urged the government to award exemplary punishment to people involved in the alleged torture of an 11-year-old housemaid in Haripur district.

A press release issued by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child quoted the child's parents as saying that she had been subjected to physical torture by her employers Ashfaq and his wife Kausar. It said that its representatives, Anees Jillani and Arshad Mahmood, visited the child in the district headquarter hospital in Haripur the other day.

They said that she looked extremely weak and malnourished and had visible marks of torture on her body. There were signs of cuts on her abdomen and other parts of the body and her head had been shaved off.

The incident had caused concern about domestic child labour, wrote Sparc's deputy national coordinator Arshad Mahmood in his letter to the prime minister. Pakistan was one of the first countries to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, a legal document which spelled out how children should be treated.

Pakistan, it said, was obligated to implement provisions of the CRC in letter and spirit and only then situation of children falling victims to adult atrocities could be forestalled. According to the letter, every child had the right to be protected against abuse, neglect, physical and mental humiliation.

The NGO expressed concern over the lack of interest of the concerned government officials and said that even some officials were trying to convince the child's parents for a patch up, said the letter.

It urged Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to ban children's employment as domestic servants; start an awareness campaign against domestic child labour; punish employers of Nazia for inhuman and insensitive treatment of the child and compensate her parents and ensure proper treatment to the child.