541 child sexual abuse cases reported in 14 districts of the province in three years
Haqnawaz Shinwari
PESHAWAR
The Home and Tribal Affairs department has informed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly that about 541 minor children including boys and girls were subjected to ‘sexual abuse’ and ‘violence’ in the province from 2019 to 2021.
The data revealed that 13 cases of children killing and sexual abuses were reported in the same period in the 11 districts of the province.
In the provincial capital, the violence against children was also continued and rampant and during the same period of time it recorded 44 cases of child assault and sexual abuse.
The Home and Tribal Affairs department has submitted official data to the provincial assembly secretariat showing that the police have made the arrest of 202 accused of which only 13 received punishment under the law.
In sexual abuse cases, the court has acquitted 18 accused so far.
Documents available with this scribe show that Peshawar reported 42, 31, 44 cases of child abuse respectively in 2010, 2020 and 2021.
Similarly, the district Nowshera reported a total of 84 cases of the same nature during 2019, 2020 and 2021.
The district Haripur reported a total of 68 cases, district Abbottabad reported 62 and Mansehra reported 43 during the period, documents stated.
It is to note here that the data submitted to KP Assembly is limited to only 14 districts of the province.
The figure show that the maximum 120 cases of rape have occurred in Peshawar.
At least 13 children were killed after sexual abuse in Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda, Nowsehra, Haripure, Abbottabad, Mansehra, Kohat, Kurram, Lakki Marwat, and Tank districts of the province.
The opposition members expressed serious concerns over the non-implementation of laws to protect children from sexual violence.
According to the report presented in the provincial assembly, 541 sexual incidents with boys and girls were reported in the province between 2019 and 2021 in only 14 districts, in which 13 children were killed after being tortured.
During this period in Peshawar, 120 boys and girls were preyed upon by vicious criminals. According to the official documents, in 2019, 71 accused have been arrested in 42 cases in Peshawar and sent to court. Four cases were convicted, acquitted in new cases and 29 cases are pending in court.
In 2020, 90 accused were arrested in 33 cases and summoned to court, three of these accused were sentenced to seven years, two hundred years and one million rupees fine, while five were sentenced, five were acquitted and 23 cases are pending in the court.
In 2021, 61 accused were arrested in 44 cases in four cases and brought to court, out of which two accused were sentenced to five and ten years in prison respectively.
The child assault and abuse cases are still hunting the society and children suffering from the curse of abuse and sexual violence.
In the month July, three incidents of rape and murder of children were emerged.
According to FIRs, the first incident was reported from the Railway Quarters near Cantt Railway Station in the first week of July when an 11-year-old was found dead and there were signs of torture on her body.
On July 10, a five-year-old girl, was sexually assaulted in the basement of a building in Gulberg where the parents of the girl were living in a flat. Apparently, the culprit also tried to kill her after the crime but she survived.
On July 17, another seven-year-old girl was found dead close to a mosque in Kali Bari street in the busy Saddar Bazaar.
However, police arrested the prime accused in the cases and presented him before the court.
Civil society representatives claimed that as a stigma connected with child sexual abuses, a number of such cases did not report in the province.
They urged the parents to report the cases and spread awareness about the different form of abuse and play their key role in eradicating the cases of child abuse and violence against the children.
