Islamabad (Pakistan): Pakistan has neglected its children leading to a rise in sexual abuse of children across the country, revealed data published by humanitarian news portal Just Earth News. The country ranks third in online child abuse. An increase of 33 per cent has been witnessed in rapes and other abuses in 2022.
According to Sahil, an NGO working to prevent sexual violence against children, last year, 4,253 children were subjected to sexual and other violence across Pakistan, almost 12 cases a day, a horrendous figure for any country. The majority of the children abused were girls. Most vulnerable children fall in the age group of six and 15 years and the majority of them fall victim to relatives or known persons.
According to Just Earth News, such abuses have triggered a wave of mental health issues among abused young children. These children, as they grow up, remain affected by anxiety, depression and loss of self-respect, an epidemic least cared for in Pakistan. The horror of child sexual abuse has multiplied with the proliferation of social media sites and the dark web where child pornography is peddled with impunity. The children abused online remain in the same age group as physically abused ones, nine to 13.
Over two million cases of child exploitation imagery uploaded onto the internet have been recorded by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), tasked to check such crimes. The cases, however, remained quite low, 403 in the last four years. Since 2018, only 124 individuals have been arrested and charged with various offences related to child abuse, as per Just Earth News. (ANI)
