Sexual predators hunt children even amid devastating floods in Pakistan
Sep 05, 2022
Islamabad [Pakistan], September 5 : Young children including girls are not safe, even amid the devastating floods in Pakistan, as media reports show that they are being abducted, raped and sexually abused.
According to The Singapore Post, a girl, seeking food was abducted and confined to a room and gang-raped for days in Sindh province. The case came to light after the video went viral on social media, compelling the police to hunt down the culprits.
Recently, a 10-year-old girl was similarly raped and killed and her brutalised body was left floating in a private swimming pool in Lahore, as per reports.
On August 29, another eight-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped in the Umarkot region of Sindh and her eyes were gouged out after that.
Citing official data, The Singapore Post reported that more than 10 children fall victim to gross child abuse every day in Pakistan. The figure is at least 30 per cent more than figure of 2020, a clear indication of the state's failure to protect children from predators. About 54 per cent of victims were girls and 46 per cent were boys.
The Singapore Post reported that there has been a sharp rise in the number of child sexual abuse cases in Pakistan with citizens taking to the streets to protest against lack of any urgency on the part of police or political parties.
Child rights groups raised concerns over the rise in these offence which could be caused by the rise of 'dark web' gangs trading in trafficking and pornography. Senior officials of police and Meta (Facebook), recently disclosed that over two million explicit images of children were uploaded from Pakistan in 2021, as per the report.
According to the data collected by an NGO Sahil, most cases appear in the Kasur district of Punjab province with 298 cases reported in 2021.
Kasur has been in the news for a massive child pornography ring and the brutal rape and killing of young Zainab. Kasur is followed by Rawalpindi and Islamabad with 292 and 247 cases, a tell-tale sign of the existence of a trafficking ring.
Meanwhile, the unprecedented rainfall and floods have created havoc in Pakistan. The catastrophic floods have resulted in the death of nearly 1,300 people in the country. At least, 1,468,019 houses have been partially or totally damaged, while 736,459 livestock have been killed due to the floods.
