November 17, 2019

Dilemma of victim shaming amid child abuse spree

topic:	Child rights
located:	Pakistan, Afghanistan
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

The dark curtains of deep-rooted and outdated norms keep victim shaming unchecked as sexual abuse of children flourishes, instead of declining in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the latest revelation, The Guardian reported hundreds of child rape cases in Afghanistan’s Logar province. According to the British newspaper, some of the victims of the abuse have since been murdered.

Civil society organisation, The Logar Youth, Social and Civil Institution, which has been working in the region for 16 years, revealed the extent of the abuse after discovering more than 100 videos on social media. The institution is investigating other high schools in the region, believing that thousands of more children may have been abused.

Concerned officials sought an easy escape from the responsibility of safeguarding these children in the first place by pressing the victims’ parents to seek justice through legal means by exposing their identity.

The education ministry officials, as well as the local law enforcement institutions, are directly complacent in these cases, and the state should directly intervene in holding them responsible in the first place rather than pressurising the victims to exhaust their remaining dignity and energy in the complicated court procedures.

Sensitising school children, parents as well as society, about and against child abusers is a must – particularly in the curriculum – to tackle the issue head-on.

This can happen to anyone, anywhere, as long as there is shaming of the victim instead of the social shaming and holding to account the culprit, be it a teacher, a family member or anyone else.

Speaking of the prevalence of this menace, hundreds of similar horrendous accounts of child abuse surfaced in Pakistan, with regular intervals with no signs of respite. A report compiled by the local non-governmental organisation, Sahil, said as many as 1,300 children have had to face sexual abuse of some kind in the last six months in Pakistan.

Even some of the gruesome cases of the sort, such as the rape and murder of a minor girl, Fareshta (angel) in the country’s capital, Islamabad, earlier this year, failed to shake the collective consciousness when the victim’s father was denied from registering a police report and was left on the street to cry for justice, alone.

Image: scribbletaylor/(CC BY-NC 2.0)

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