Daily Times

Less than a year after a six-year-old girl’s body was found left in a rubbish dump in Kasur — the man convicted of raping and murdering her has been sent to the gallows.

Pakistan, sadly, is a country where child sexual abuse is commonplace. According to Sahil, a local child rights NGO, some 2,3000 crimes against children were reported during the first half of this year alone. And in 57 cases, minors were killed after being raped. Thus the case of Zainab Ansari had been described as a tipping point. She became a symbol of resistance; of a people who said they can endure no more. This is perhaps why her image is the most recognisable of all the seven little girls that Imran Ali was convicted of murdering in similar circumstances.

And in a way the Zainab case has proved a watershed moment. But for mostly the wrong reasons. There have been calls for a public — or at least televised — hanging. Not just from the child’s bereaved family but from certain quarters of the so-called liberal elite. That is, those who should know better. At least in terms of successive studies finding no correlation between execution and effective deterrent. But more than this, it has thrown up old contradictions. Like the notion that one can be against capital punishment except for the most extreme circumstances; such as what happened to Zainab and the other children.

Of course, an ad hoc approach to the death penalty is never be feasible; whatever governments of the day might say. For due process to work the latter cannot be dependent on the identity of the victim. For that is the path towards selective justice. And all too often when it comes to child sexual abuse cases — the authorities want to be seen to be taking action against the perpetrator. However belatedly.

The child must remain the primary concern. A not insignificant number of rapes are carried out by family members or those known to the victims. Thus in the midst of stop-start efforts to teach children what constitutes (in)appropriate touching by an adult combined with the onslaught of twenty-four-seven media — there is the real risk that minors may be afraid to speak out for fear that they will be the ones actively tightening the hangman’s noose.  This is a burden that no child should have to bear.  *

Published in Daily Times, October 20^th 2018.