Daily Times

If you are a child born in this land of the pure, there is a good chance that you might soon be subject to the cruel scars inflicted by the elders around you. What a country we live in, in which horrific violence against children makes the headlines every day.

The morning of July 3, I reached work to find one of my colleagues mourning the very tragic demise of another unfortunate eight-year-old girl, who lived as a housemaid in Islamabad’s suburbs. Apparently, the girl was pierced by the grill of the house’s boundary wall when she fell off a terrace. The police and media seemed content with labelling the incident as just another accident, yet it made me wonder what these poor children had done to deserve this fate?

The civil society organisations committed to legal aid and psychosocial support in cases of child abuse and violence also failed to offer much help. Understandably, these organisations were limited because they could not initiate proceedings until sought by parents and/or family of the victim. However, this does not exonerate the society from the onus of providing all children a well-protected life. Whilst making anonymous attempts to mobilise required support and ensure that any deceitful deals (much likely in such cases) should not let the incident go unreported, I learnt three major things that our society needs to attend immediately.

The strengthening of laws and regulations to prohibit employment of children is elementary. The laws regulating employment of children and ensuring their protection also remains subject to serious challenges. Even though the 18th Constitutional Amendment provided subnational governments the opportunity to upgrade laws suiting to the provincial contextual needs, the implementation of even these upgraded laws remains a big challenge as yet.

Our provinces have upgraded the Employment of Children Act, 1991 in order to regulate child labour. These laws attempt to restrict the employment of children below 14 years of age, especially in hazardous occupations. The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) is yet to upgrade its law on child labour and is currently regulating issues of child labour under the Employment of Children Act, 1991. The National Assembly passed a child protection bill for ICT in February 2018, but that bill has yet to be implemented. However, one major issue is that none of these laws restrict the employment of children as domestic servants.

The laws on child protection fail to provide the citizens opportunity to report any incident or likelihood of abuse or violence. On the contrary, these laws do extensively cover the penalties, with regards to complaints that may be forwarded on the basis of suspicion and eventually be found frivolous. Thus, this statute leaves a lot of room for manipulation to potential abusers or perpetrators of violence.

One could draw two main conclusions upon reviewing all these laws pertaining to child labour and their protection. Firstly, the laws seem like they were created just to appease people, with no real thought going in to their conception. Number two, these laws are designed to release citizens from their social responsibilities. These laws hardly provide citizens [read neighbours] any opportunity to intervene in cases where violence against children is suspected. These laws keep the social responsibility at bay with a) not appreciating any preventive whistle-blowing systems and b) threatening people with severe penalties in case of false complaint. The magnitude of violence and abuse against children demands that whistle-blowing must be made safe and easy in order to nurture a culture of collective responsibility towards protection of children.

Upon reviewing child labour and protection laws, you can deduce two main things: firstly, the laws seem to be created just to appease people, with no real thought going into their conception, and number two, these laws are only designed to release citizens from their social responsibilities

Whilst trying to mobilise civil society organisations that work for children, I realised that there are absolutely no systems for reporting a suspicious case. There is no government system, at least around the ICT that receives such complaints. Civil society organisations working in Islamabad for the past few decades have also failed in fostering a preventive complaint mechanism. Everyone seems to be waiting for case of abuse or a violent incident to take place in order to start working. This is the time that we all, government and the civil society organisations, should start working for a child abuse/violence complaint readdress system that even investigates complaints made on the basis of mere suspicion.

The laws in the country are collective instruments for social justice and harmonious living. Weaker laws to safeguard children and their subliminal implementation only depict the deplorable level of our collective insensitivity towards children. Every day, I witness older people in the neighbourhood installing spearheaded grills and barbed wires to fence their street lawns and to safeguard their grass, plants and flowers from children. None of them ever agrees with me that these spearheaded grills could be fatal to children who don’t even intend to harm their lawns. Eventually I did see an innocent kid getting hurt by one of these spearheaded grills. Many of these people will keep trace of every activity in the neighbourhood, yet ignore cases of child abuse or violence against children. While our future generations can be taught to be more compassionate about this great cause, what can we do about the people in power who have chosen to keep quiet on this matter?

This insensitivity is part of a mentality that has numerous examples in our society. From the children working in factories, to those studying in expensive private schools, all remain vulnerable in Pakistan and the only solution is a growth in our social conscience.

We need to solve this problem now, in order to have a bright future for our children tomorrow.

The writer is a citizens’ voice

Published in Daily Times, July 19^th 2018.