Violence against children continues unabated in Pakistan's Punjab province

Lahore [Pakistan], June 21 : As Pakistan continues to witness a rise in crimes against children including child sexual abuse, abduction and child marriages, citizens in the Punjab province seem to get no respite from the current crime situation.
According to The Express Tribune, at least two cases of violence against children were reported in Lahore during the past week. One of the cases was reported in Sundar where the body of a four-year-old boy named Rehan was recovered in a village. When the body was recovered, the victim had severe marks of torture on his body.
Prior to this, another minor met a similar fate in Chung. The victim named Hassan had left his home and his body was later recovered from a drain. Such incidents were continuously being reported.
In January, a young boy had molested his younger brother before beating him to death with bricks. In December last year, a minor girl was found dumped in a drain in Sundar. During investigations, it came forth that her cousin had molested her after strangling her to death.
According to The Express Tribune, the Pakistani government had made huge claims of rehabilitating rape survivors and had launched a comprehensive strategy to curb the issue of child abuse.
However, nothing substantial had been done to protect the minor citizens so far. The authorities concerned continued to project their typical attitude of indifference toward children's rights, reported the Pakistani daily.
The Zainab murder case was reported in 2018, where a serial killer, over a period of two years, had been sexually assaulting and murdering children right under the nose of police and other law enforcement agencies. The people of Kasur were outraged and came out on the streets to protest and demanded justice. However, the police, instead of listening to the demands, opened fire, resulting in two deaths.
The authorities concerned have done little to protect vulnerable children and as a consequence, the abuse cases had multiplied and were continuously being reported in various parts of the province.
According to a report by Sahil, a non-governmental organisation working against child sexual abuse, asserted that on average, at least eight children were abused in the country daily.
A total number of 2,960 cases were reported in Pakistan of child abuse in 2020. This was an increase of four per cent as compared to 2019. Of these victims, 51 per cent were girls and 49 per cent were boys.
Out of the reported cases, 985 were of sodomy, 787 rape, 89 pornography and child sexual abuse and 80 were of murder after sexual abuse. Cases of abduction, missing children and child marriages were 834, 345 and 119, respectively.
Besides this, the other promises made by the government, time and again, for the betterment of children were yet to be initiated.