Child Sexual Abuse in Pakistan

Author: Rana Tassawar Ali, November 5 2013      Child sexual abuse exists everywhere in the world in its different forms. Child sexual abuse is the sexual exploitation or victimization of a child by an adult, adolescent or older child. The survivors of child sexual abuse are more likely grow up with a negative deep rooted impact on their mental and physical health. There are thousands of children are surviving in Pakistan from child sexual abuse, according to a non-governmental organization (NGO), which is working on reporting and monitoring child sexual abuse in country.

According to NGO Global Vision, which works with street children and child sexual abuse, communities in Pakistan are conservative. Child sexual abuse awareness-raising is very difficult; we are unable to provide awareness in communities due to religious constraints. In Pakistan, there is no proper rehabilitation center available for child sexual abuse victims; only a few NGOs are providing rehabilitation services to children.  In Pakistani law, child sexual abuse and child pornography are punishable criminal acts - the punishment of these acts differ according to the nature of the cases. But the mechanism is not clearly defined: how and which type of court will deal these cases. Mostly, the proceedings of the cases are currently carried by civil courts. This is against the best interest of children. There are different problems faced by victims’ families, particullary that they lack witness protection because no laws exist which provide that protection.

Pakistani civil society is trying to convince law makers to bring about concrete and clear policy on child protection and exploitation, but, due to some rigid and feudal parliamentarians, it is not easy. At this time, for the sake of child protection, Pakistan civil society and media should take on a vibrant and focused role. I would request that other international rights holders and humanitarian organizations join hands with Pakistan civil society and build a pressure on the government of Pakistan on this child protection issue.  

Currently in Pakistan, there are three thousand cases reported in newspapers and at police stations. Urban and rural divisions show almost 55 percent of cases reported overall in country; around 45 percent were unregistered. Gender distribution shows that more girls than boys are victims of child sexual abuse - data shows that 71 percent are girls in comparison to 29 percent boys. Research shows that children and adolescents, regardless of their race, economic status, and culture, are equally at risk for sexual victimization.

If we try to analysis who are abuser or perpetrators, research shows that generally offenders lives in the family. Sexual abuse by strangers is not as common as sexual abuse by family members.

According to psychologists, some children are resilient and learn to cope with the trauma of assault on their own; however, children are usually afraid to express their true emotions or may be denying their feelings as a coping mechanism. Children may experience harm in the short term but suffer serious problems later in life.

Sexual abuses rob children of their childhood and create a loss of trust, feelings of guilt, and self-abusive behaviors. Children may display inappropriate sexual behaviors - one of the strong indications that a child has been sexually abused is inappropriate sexual knowledge, sexual interest, and sexually acting out. Children who are victims report different symptoms and difficulties in their life - they have disturbance in sleeping, regressive behavior, eating problems, and behavior and performance problems at school, as well as non-participation in school activities. Experts agree that these effects lead to antisocial behavior, depression, identify confusion, poor self-esteem, and other emotional problems. Adults who were sexually abused as children commonly experience depression, high levels anxiety which can result in self destructive behaviors, such as alcoholism, or drug abuse, anxiety attacks, situation specific anxiety disorders and insomnia.

The effects of child sexual abuse are very wide ranging, and vary from survivor to survivor depending on a numbers of factors, such as age of victim, the duration of abuse, number of abusers.

"If we are to teach real peace in this world, and if we are to carry on a real war against war, we shall have to begin with the children." (Mohandas Gandhi)