There is some good news for 13-year-old Rizwana, the girl whose life was left hanging in the balance after she was allegedly tortured by her employers (the wife and children of an Islamabad civil judge). Doctors at the Lahore General Hospital, where the child is admitted, say that she is showing signs of improvement. The Islamabad police have set up a joint investigation team to thoroughly investigate the torture case. The child has also been handed over to the Child Protection Bureau whose official will now attend the child at hospital. What Rizwana went through is indescribable, but also points to a harsh reality in this country: the poor and working classes are often regarded as a disposable commodity and live a life devoid of dignity and respect. Subsequent events including the pre-arrest bail of the accused have been less surprising for a majority of Pakistanis who know how the nexus of well-connected people ensures that justice works differently for the affluent. Had Pakistan shown zero tolerance towards child abuse, had the laws against child labour actually been implemented, had justice in the past worked also for the poor and marginalized, Rizwana would not have been lying in a hospital. But since the abusers of Tayyaba (2016), the late Uzma and Rehan (2019), the late Kamran (2022), and countless other children whose silent deaths did not cross the watchful eyes of the media faced no major consequences of their brutal actions, cases like Rizwana’s keep popping up.
Pakistan is the fifth most-populous country in the world, and it has a good number of motivated and talented young people and children. But instead of training these children for a better future, the government has turned their back on them. Children who should be at school taking coding lessons and learning more about the age of AI and machine learning are being employed by the country’s one per cent, who indirectly ensures that such children remain stuck in the cycle of poverty. Last month, 24 Pakistani students participated in a US space camp. Their post-return interviews show the positive impact education and new learning opportunities have on children. In an ideal scenario, Rizwana should have been one of the 24, learning new things and paving the path for a career of her own. But unfortunately, she finds herself among the 22.4 million children who are out of school and work under strict bosses who purposefully let their carefully-hidden-from-society cruelty dominate them only to target the most vulnerable of all: working-class children.
Rarely does the Pakistan government provide any reason for the people not to be frustrated. But its inaction against child abusers and the widespread practice of employing underage children has touched the heights of incompetence. Why is it impossible to take action against those who hire children – that too on meagre salaries and to treat them like slaves? Why do these cases end after the accused coerce victims into signing out-of-court settlements? Where is the state, and why is it silent over this abuse of power going on for years?