Police have detained a seminary teacher for reportedly raping two minor students and threatening them with terrible penalties if they reported the incident, according to Dawn.
According to Daira Din Pannah police, the complainant, Jalal Din, stated in his application that his son and nephew, aged 10 to 12 years, had been studying at Madressah Yaseen at Chak No 143/ML for the past many months.
He claimed that lads told him that their seminary teacher raped them and threatened to torture them if they told anyone about it. Following the complaint, the police filed a case against the suspect under sections 376-iii and 377-B. According to Dawn’s report, the police arrested the perpetrator and transported the boys to a hospital for medical examination.
According to the ‘Cruel Numbers 2023’ report released by the non-profit organization Sahil in collaboration with the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR), 4,213 cases of child abuse were reported in Pakistan in 2023, with an alarming average of 11 children being abused each day.
The thorough report covers numerous types of child abuse, including as sexual assault, kidnapping, missing children, and child marriages.
According to the gender breakdown, 53% of the reported cases were girls and 47% were boys.
Notably, children aged 6 to 15 were identified as the most vulnerable to abuse, with more boys than girls reporting as victims in this age group. According to Geo News, children as young as 0-5 years old have been sexually abused.
The report dives into the classification of abusers, showing that acquaintances are still the most common offenders of child sexual abuse, followed by relatives, family members, strangers, and female abettors. Geographically, Punjab had the most cases, accounting for 75% of the total, followed by Sindh (13%), Islamabad (7%), KP (3%), and Balochistan, PoK, and GB combined (2%).
The research, titled ‘Cruel Numbers 2023,’ indicated that 91% of all reported cases were registered with the police, demonstrating that law enforcement is actively addressing the issue. Of the reported incidents, 2,021 were particularly about child sexual abuse, with an equal mix of genders. According to Geo News, there were 61 cases of homicide following sexual assault, 1,833 cases of kidnapping, 330 cases of missing children, and 29 cases of child marriages, with 27 involving girls and two involving boys.
In addition to abuse cases, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) monitored instances involving children aged 18 and under who were injured or killed. Drowning (694), accidents (401), murder (286), torture (121), injuries (111), suicide (110), and fatalities from electric shocks (103) were the most common causes among the 2,184 cases tracked.
The NGO also developed ‘Cruel Numbers 2023’ by monitoring 81 national and regional newspapers on a daily basis in order to present full data on the issue of violence against children and contribute to current information on child sexual abuse in Pakistan. According to Geo News, the report aims to increase awareness and spread information on various forms of child sexual abuse throughout society.
