Alarming Pace of Sexual Assault by Umm-E-Habiba

Article : Alarming Pace of Sexual Assault

Written By: Umm-E-Habiba

Another gruesome and gigantic tragedy of child rape is happened in Pakistan, a country which tries to cover itself under the guise of religion. We have not yet forget the rape and murder of 8-years old Zainab Amin in Kasur that another Zainab is became the victim of a heinous and barbaric act.Two and a half years old Zainab is killed brutally after being assaulted and extremely tortured in Charsadda.The news spread like a forest fire on social media and everyone is expressing grief and sorrow and seek justice for the deceased family. But regrettably this is neither first nor the last case where innocent and naive children are subjected to this cruelty and barbarism. Such news keeps circulating daily on electronic, print and social media. People show their anger after every brutal rape, murder and abuse. They raised their voice to be heard and seek terrible punishment of the offenders.

But the disturbing fact is that, despite these outrages and protests, the number of rapes and murders of women and children are increasing day by day. Every new day brings a new miserable and heart-wrenching story of oppression and cruelty. Can anyone imagine the height of brutality in our society? The situation is getting worst day by day and how we should come to control it. Should rapists be publically hanged or not? Will chemical castration or public hanging stop happening of such violent crimes in Pakistan??

The answer is No. The reason is that the rapists are sick and mentally retarded persons, they will try whatever they want to do. Public hanging of offenders will not stop or even reduce the violent crimes but will increase the stress and violation in society. However, in the last two decades, some laws have been made to protect children and women but because these laws have not been fully implemented, they have failed to stop or even reduce these crimes. So far nothing special has been done to reform the system. It betrays the shortcomings and weaknesses of our policing, prosecution and criminal justice system. Every day, 11 children fall prey to sex predators nationally according to the data collected by non-governmental organisation Sahil. Child abuse is increasing at an alarming pace, but there is neither a policy nor a mechanism to address this. Our governing elites are not serious enough to take it up, rather they are making empty promises and statements that indicates that they have failed to realize the magnitude and severity of the situation and are still in a state of denial.

The lure politicians have no concern with the reformation and betterment of the system, rather than to have loads of bloody money. This has become the main concern of our rulers.But the problem exist and is increasing day by day, therefore it needs to be solved. We should overcome the shortcomings and loopholes in our system in order to prevail peace in society.

First and the foremost thing for bringing peace in society is to change the mindset of the people.We should come out of this ostrich mentality towards the rape victims or survivors. A big example of this is the insensitive statements of the police official on the Lahore motorway case.Although, the police official later apologized for his statements, but the question is whether he has changed his mentality or just untreated under pressure. And there are many in Pakistan who has the same mentality and simply shifts the blame on the victim rather than looking into the root causes of the increasing number of rapes of women and children.

Secondly, we need to adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards the rape and sexual abuse at every level of society. The criminal justice system should be reformed to ensure justice for everyone irrespective of the influential and non-influential persons. Specialized and properly trained female and male police officers should be included in police to properly investigate the rape and abuse cases.

Along with these things, parents also play a major role in this regard. They have the responsibility to properly take care of their children and make them aware from the right and wrong, because children are very innocent and naive. They are not expressive and cautious enough to see the lust in a person's eye or understands what he intends to. Therefore, parents need to give proper time to their children and keep a vigilant eye on them. Also they should come up to expel out the shyness in the children and make them confident and expressive enough to be able to comprehend an abnormal and unusual behaviour if they face. If we all come together on the same subject matter, we can save not only the lives of millions of children in Pakistan but also of those across the globe. As, it is a global concern for humanity.