Daily Times

While battered and bruised Rizwana lying in an intensive care unit is yet to receive justice, nauseating details have surfaced about the torture, rape and murder of another 10-year-old. This time, however, unmistakable yet bone-chilling footage of a severely assaulted Fatima writhing in pain as her rapist–probably elated by the thrill of his latest conquest–snored through the night would be incredibly hard for the defence counsel to poke holes in. The audacity with which the parents of the deceased were quickly summoned to receive the dead body and ordered to bury her quickly speaks volumes about the impunity enjoyed by influential families. Fatima, like hundreds of others, had been sent to serve as a maid at a grand haveli.

While her accused rapist and murderer Pir Asad Ali Shah Jeelani has been arrested, it does not take much to guess how easily he can step out into the open. For people like him, deep pockets and having a few influential heavyweights on the speed dial are enough to escape the consequences of their actions. From just as nauseating details surfacing about as many as 100 girls sent by devotees to work at his haveli, there’s no way to know about the true extent of his crimes. Between being raped or assaulted or subjected to backbreaking conditions, as many as 264,000 (according to remote estimates) children find themselves in a desperate struggle for livelihood. Their participation in the informal economy is neither acknowledged nor declared

a critical threat by those sitting at the helm of the affairs. That even discussions related to child labour have been reduced to placards or social media captions speaks volumes about the general apathy. As a state, we need to realise how the Consitution is a guarantor of fundamental rights to survival, security, safety and education, and these rights apply to children just as they apply to adults. Therefore, every murdered Fatima, every abused Rizwana, every Tayyaba forced to go back to work and over 20 million out-of-school children all raise questions on our credibility as a functioning country. *