Islamabad

One could well imagine how vulnerable our children are to sexual exploitation and abuse by seeing the 2.27 per cent reported increase in such cases last year.

The tally of girls and boys abused in the country grew from 2,255 in 2010 to 2,303 in 2011, according to Sahil, a nongovernmental organisation working for child rights.

The situation grows grimmer when Sahil insists the number is much bigger as many of child abuse incidents aren’t reported to police due to involvement of the victims’ acquaintances for family pressures or shame.

“It is difficult to measure the prevalence of child abuse cases in our society. Many incidents will never be reported, especially those committed by family members,” Saad Ahmad Khan of Sahil told this scribe on Tuesday.

According to Sahil statistics compiled by the scanning of the country’s 65 national and regional newspapers, on average, three children aged below 18 years were subjected to sexual exploitation and abuse daily last year.

Like previous years, girls made most child abuse victims in 2011. “Of the children abused last year, 72 per cent were girls. They were abused for a longer period of time compared with boys.”

Similar to previous years, most of such girls and boys belonged to the 6-15 age bracket. Statistics show around two-thirds of child abuses were committed by acquaintances including family members, friends, neighbours, teachers, clerics, guards, employers, brick kiln owners and shopkeepers and the rest by strangers including policemen, drivers and landlords. Shockingly, around five per cent female abettors were also involved in the punishable offence.

Altogether, 4,846 people partook in 2,303 child abuses. Around 85 per cent children were abused for one time, five per cent for more than a day and the rest for unidentified period of time.

According to Sahil, Punjab, the most populous province of the country, reported most of such cases i.e. 79 per cent, followed by Sindh (10 per cent), Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (four per cent) and three per cent each from Islamabad and Balochistan. Only three cases were reported in Azad Jammu and Kashmir and one in Gilgit-Baltistan.

Overall, rural areas reported more than double of child abuses (60 per cent) than urban localities. By and large, markets, under-construction houses, religious seminaries, mosques and shrines were the places of abuse. In many cases, children were abused as punishment or revenge. Some girls were raped by those interested in marrying them but were declined marriage either by victims or their families.

Surprisingly, unlike the past when the stigma attached with sexual abuse prevented families from reporting it to police, parents of around 75 per cent molested children approached police for relief. With some cases settled out of court, police and courts processed majority of these cases. Abusers got death, jail and fine depending on the nature of the abuse.

Also, a phenomenal increase in child abduction cases was reported from 850 in 2010 to 1112 in 2011 with three girls and boys being kidnapped every day on average. Saad Ahmad said that Sahil had taken the initiative of collecting child abuse figures reported in the press to educate people on their children’s vulnerability to abuse and the ways and means for their protection, especially outside home. He urged people to help child abuse victims cope with tremendous emotional challenges, which might be lifelong, instead of blaming them for the unfortunate happening.

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