Focus on violence against children

When Islamabad social worker Ayesha Muzaffar is out raising awareness in schoolsabout child sexual abuse, she has to make sure she does not refer to male and female body parts by name - considered highly offensive in this deeply Islamic country. Instead she has to come up with descriptions that allow her to communicate to children without violating such strict social norms. Talking openly about sex is strictly taboo in Pakistan. It is even more unacceptable to openly discuss the sexual abuse of children. "Many people say to us what are you talking about?" Muzaffar, a psychologist and Office Coordinator at Aangan, an Islamabad-based NGO, working on child sexual abuse, told IRIN. It is hard to convince schools to let them work with children and often permission is denied on the grounds of "What would the parents say?" So Aangan has to carefully approach the school principal. If the principal agrees, the NGO works with the teachers first and later the school children. "Usually we make them sit in a circle and carefully approach the subject of sex and what is abuse," she explained. Instead of words she uses illustrations and even those of boys and girls wearing a dress, and not in the nude. Such taboos mean many cases of child sexual abuse in Pakistan are swept under the carpet to avoid embarrassing publicity or shame on the family. In one recent case IRIN learnt about, a 13-year-old girl was quietly and hastily married to a 24-year-old cousin after parents discovered that he was touching and fondling her, social workers said. Besides providing legal and psychological counselling, Aangan, which means courtyard, continues to work with local schools in Islamabad to find out the extend of the problem. It also raises awareness of the issue by distributing pamphlets and drawing books to very young children. Boys are also vulnerable - in many parts of Pakistan young boys are sold for sex work. In Bannu, a small city close to the Afghan border in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), young dancing boys known as "Lakhtay" are sold and resold. These boys dance during marriage parties and other festive occasions, but are also often sodomised by their owners. Leading rights activist Zia Awan believes violence against children including severe cases of sexual abuse is on the rise in the country. His views are shared by many others, though reliable statistics are hard to obtain. "The rising number of child abuse cases clearly indicates that the government has failed to tackle the problem," Awan told IRIN. To prove his point he cited a major increase in the number of reported cases in which children were either killed, raped or sodomised in the country in the first four months of this year. According to a report by Madadgaar, a joint venture between UNICEF Pakistan and Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA), 447 cases of physical and sexual violence were reported between January and April. This compares with 1,183 cases for all of last year. Out of the reported 447 incidents in four months, 164 young boys and girls were murdered, 67 raped, 84 sodomised and 70 seriously injured. "But these figures are just the tip of the iceberg," Muzaffar said. "The problem is much bigger than we think," Muzaffar maintained, adding a major component of child sexual abuse was incest, which some people did not want to acknowledge because it was considered embarrassing and shameful. Awan explained that violence against youngsters was on the rise in Pakistan because of weak laws, corruption and social attitudes. However, he conceded that there was a need to carry out more comprehensive research on the issue. However, the government says it has commissioned research to find out more about child abuse. "We are carrying out national studies in four areas relating to children. These include studies on child domestic workers and the street children," Muhammad Hassan Mangi, director of the government's National Commission for Child Welfare and Development, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Mangi said the government was working on a comprehensive policy, which would cover child health, education, rights, abuse, trafficking and prostitution. "The society takes a child as a possession, not as an individual. This will take time to change," Mangi added, explaining the reason why a comprehensive national policy was required. He added government was calling a national conference on children in June where all stakeholders, including children, would be allowed to submit their recommendations for a national policy. One less serious but more widespread problem that the policy will address is corporal punishment, both at school and at home. Mangi said the provincial educational departments had issued a directive last year asking schools to put a stop to the practice. But Sarwat Shah, programme coordinator at the Pakistani NGO, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of a Child, told IRIN in Islamabad, that legislation and its implementation was needed to stop the beating of children, which was socially acceptable and quite widespread. "Parents think it is our kid, we can do whatever we want to," she said. "In return children unleash their resentment in other ways, thus a cycle of violence is generated."