Pakistan remained plagued by rampant child abuse last year; wails the 2018 edition of the Cruel report. According to its data, as many as 10 children were victimised by the monstrosity across the country every day.
The Cruel Report 2018 is based on cases of child sexual abuse and child marriages recorded in 85 national, regional and local daily newspapers.
The data also included cases directly received by Sahil, a non-governmental organisation that offers free legal and psychological aid to victims of child sex abuse, along with other organisations.
A total of 3832 cases were reported, including both boys and girls, during 2018 are 3832.
A majority of the cases were reported in the crime category of rape/sodomy and abduction for sexual purpose respectively.
However, the report believed that these numbers do not cover the entire scope of such incidents in Pakistan since they are often not reported.
A gender-split analysis showed that more cases of female child sexual abuse were reported when compared to male children.
Out of the total, 1738 boys and 2094 girls reported cases.
In this time period, major categories of crimes reported were an abduction, rape/sodomy and gang rape/sodomy.
As many as 923 girls were kidnapped. Meanwhile, cases of 589 boys and 537 girls were reported under rape and sodomy.
Numbers of gang rape/sodomy cases are also very high: 156 girls and 282 boys.
This was said by Sahil Regional Office Sukkur Provincial Coordinator, Barkat Ali Ansari, during a press conference held at a local press club. Irshad Ghanghro and Sahil Monitoring Officer, Rana Rehan, were also present on the occasion.
According to the report, 1787 out of a total of 3832 abusers were acquaintances while 467 were strangers’ allies with an acquaintance. Rest of the categories included relatives, neighbours, female abettors, police officials, movies, doctors and others.
He further said that the age group most vulnerable to child sexual abuse was different for the two genders. For boys, the most vulnerable age group was between 11-15 years, where 577 of them were victimised. In contrast, 516 girls of the same age group were assaulted.
For girls, however, the most sensitive group was said to be between 6-10 years wherein 472 girls and 404 boys reported crimes against themselves.
