ZARA LIAQAT
(STUDENT OF IIUI)
Increase in child abuse cases in our society is a dilemma. However, higher authorities are not paying attentions to such heinous crimes. Children are the future of our nation they can make change. Nevertheless, due to these kind of abuses faced by the children can destroy their personality and confidence as well. Children that have been exposed to abuse cannot undergo the normal process of socialization. Psychologically damaged members of society constitute a damaged society. Terrorism, inflation, poverty, illiteracy and unemployment are among factors creating frustration among adults, who take it out on children. Several types of child abuse are often combined: physical, sexual, psychological, negate. However, child abuse in family is highly dangerous for number of reasons. According to statistic, children usually knew their offenders. Family abuse is more traumatizing, it excludes possibility of receiving help from supposedly close people and it is highly difficult to identify
There was a case of when Sidra Bibi was a young girl living with her parents and siblings in the Pakistani city of Lahore when she suffered sexual abuse, and the trauma has lived with her over the years. According to her, “My mother, my father, my aunts and my uncles all connived to protect my paternal grandfather, who was abusing me, my sister and our female cousins since we were six or seven years old,” Sidra, now 30 and married, The grandfather, she added, asked the girls to masturbate him, and then committed anal penetration on Sidra and her cousin.
We were asked to keep quiet as the truth would destroy the family,” said Sidra, who is certain the matter was discussed among the adults in the family, but no action taken, as “my grandfather was a respected elder.” Sidra has also never told her husband what she experienced, but says she is “very protective” of her own small daughter.
Child abuse also includes the torture on child house cleaner. There was a case in Punjab, Gujranwala: A nine-year-old house cleaner was beaten up and burned allegedly by her employer.
The girl’s parents told police that their daughter worked at the house of Noreen Bibi. They said her husband Sheikh Saleem had stopped her from leaving the house without his permission.
On Thursday, they said, the man asked the girl if his wife had left the house in his absence, and she told him that she had. This led to an argument between the couple. They said the woman later burned the girl with an iron rod and cut her hair for telling on her. A neighborhoods shopkeeper noticed the burn injuries on the girl’s arms when she later went for shopping and informed her parents. Police said the employers had denied the allegation. No one had been arrested.
Another case happened in Lahore when a 10-year-old domestic helper was allegedly beaten to death on Thursday night by her employers who accused her of theft.
Iram worked at the home of Altaf Mehmood, his wife Nasira Altaf and their two children in the city’s Askari 9 neighbourhoods.
She was taken to Services Hospital by Mehmood and his wife in a critical condition but died en route to the hospital. Police said the girl’s body bore marks of physical abuse, but the exact cause of death would be determined following an autopsy report. Iram’s hands and feet had rope marks on them, as she was allegedly tied by the family and beaten with a plastic pipe. Doctors at the hospital told that they have yet to determine if she was sexually assaulted as well. The body was transferred to Mayo Hospital and then handed to the girl’s family following medico-legal
Formalities.
Reportedly, one out of every three children is a victim of some kind of abuse in Pakistan. Most of these children are abused by someone they know and trust, like a relative, family friend or a caretaker. But there are also cases where unfamiliar people are found guilty of sexual abuse of minors.
For preventing such abuses parents can play a very vital role by supporting their children and by giving confidence that they can share anything to them. Moreover, government also make such laws that no one try to commit such heinous crime.