Thursday, November 6, 2008

Stop Child Abuse; Anti Child Abuse Day Celebration At LUMS

Today when I went for lunch at Pepsi Dinning C,LUMS, came across banners, posters and stalls, creating awareness regarding the child abuse. November is the official child abuse awareness month, LUMS is making efforts to create awareness, and it is inspiring and impressive.
Lately I came across a new report on attitudes to child sex abuse in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province paints a horrifying picture of widespread abuse.
The report shows that many of the population believe that the sexual abuse of young boys is a matter of pride. Imagine, how absurd it sounds and so called society, norms and traditions are cruel.
Recently, UN conducted survey of Child Abuse; one third of those who took part in the survey did not even believe that child sexual abuse was a bad thing - let alone a crime.
The UN believes the sexual abuse of young children is widespread in some areas of the country but that until now it has been hidden behind a wall of silence.
In Pakistan much of the population lives in squalid slums where children are forced to play their part in the day to day survival of the family. That means working in places such as the notorious Pirwadhai bus station in Rawalpindi.
Here there are hundreds of young boys at work in the grimy workshops and sleazy hotels on which the bus station's reputation is based. For this is a centre of child sexual abuse. One boy told me that local hotels encouraged the trade: "The hotel-owners employ children who are used to attract customers. The customers are then told what kind of services are provided and that they can do what they want with the children. The hotels here are very well known for these services. And it's good money for us."
Their clients are men from all backgrounds - travelling from one part of the country to another - thus freed from the constraints of life at home in this conservative society. With girls mostly kept at home - they prey on these working boys who are extremely vulnerable to abuse.
Inhuman acts prevail yet we keep silence; & we let people abuse children, disgusting and gruesome. Isn’t it the time to speak up and voice against the worst crime one could ever imagine????? at least speak up!!!

3 comments:

moetesum said...

Child abuse is every where especially in areas and places where other issues have much dominance. It does not mean that issues concerning our survival should take precedence over such notorious rather evil aspect of our society. The life of truck drivers, how they keep young boys and what they keep them for and with utter disregard and no shame they claim it to be their way of working life...............Yet further analysis reveals that majority of minor or child abuse are from the people whom these young innocent wonderful gift of God trust. How strong is the force of Satan/evil that persuades the beast inside a man to tear the life of the most beautiful thing that walks the face of the earth.....OUR CHILDREN. You hear a story like this and really it hearts one really feels so helpless and yet the victims carry this burden and this pain for the rest of their life............One can only pray and spread the word that let alone the act is not only barbaric, inhumane and shameful but carries far greater implications when one will be judged for his deeds in the world hereafter. On this note one should pray for the quick emotional recovery of the poor victims and may Allah provide them justice and power to overcome the darkness.

Imran Baloch said...

Moetesum, agreed....appreciate your thoughts and comments

Anonymous said...

I think people often miss the point about what delineates what hate-crimes are. I have a concern about how sexual predators violate others without regard to how those violations have ruined their victims' lives, have imposed destruction of the victim's health, body tissues, spiritual peace with Christ, or the victim's mental health. It seems that family members often protect their own when they know their relatives are violators. What's worse is how pedophiles or homosexual rapists purport their physical imposition on their victims as something others have to accept as a form of their self-expression—or how the predators purport to feeling discriminated against under their guise as homosexuals if they can't do what they do--which consists of degrading and depriving their victims of their human, civil and U.S. Constitutional rights. Maybe this scenario is more like hatred, vindictiveness, or psychotic on the part of predators. Yet, where are those who will stand up against human trafficking, pedophiles, homosexual pedophiles or rapists? Who is standing up for the victims? Pedophiles affect their victims as had Nazi’s affected their victims—blatant disregard for another human being’s human rights. When victims are offended sexually, their physiological system is made to conform to the pointless, irrational, corrupt, vindictiveness of the selfish, willful acts of the perpetrator. The respect, sanctity, and truth of the life children have been given is degraded, interrupted, and turned into meaninglessness when they are victimized. Their minds shouldn’t have to change from living, enjoying, and learning about life so as to have to, instead, focus on the self-destructiveness victimization causes and which eventually manifests itself into. Should Jesus Christ even be mentioned here, or will that discriminate against or offend the sexually exploitive, perverted perpetrators? The pristine, perfect, balanced, harmonious, peace-making love of Jesus Christ is totally forced to become the sinner’s arena for destruction as these perverted perpetrators take full control of their victim’s bodies, minds, physiological responses, and meaning in life. The laws fail to hold sexually exploitive, violating perpetrators accountable for intent to cause harm in too many cases. The laws are failing our precious children. Then there are the adults who purport of their own abuse and continue the cycle of abuse while they force it upon their victims—the laws seem to exempt these perpetrators while excusing the abuse as being a product of mental illness—which ignores the purpose for which Jesus Christ suffered the abuse He had. This in turn causes existent victims of sexual abuse to have the entire court systems guide the healing process to a self-inflicting path of hate, sin, and unfairness instead of the children’s having the choice to be comforted, acknowledged, and influenced by Jesus Christ and adequate care. It seems that the justice system takes advantage of children’s lack of cognitive development to defend their rights to believe and be able to worship in the faith they would choose if they could think in terms of having a choice.