Lahore : A shocking number of 2,322 child abuse cases was reported in the first six months of the current year in Pakistan.
This was said by the regional director of an NGO, Ansar Sajad Bhatti, while addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club on Friday. The findings in the NGO’s six months’ report, Jan-Jun, 2018, show that a total of 2,322 child abuse cases were reported in newspapers from all over Pakistan, including Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit Baltistan (GB).
Ansar said the data revealed that more than 12 children were abused daily during the period from Jan to Jun, 2018. He said the major crime categories of the reported cases were abduction, 542, sodomy, 381, rape, 360, missing children, 236, rape attempt, 224, gang sodomy, 167, sodomy attempt, 112, gang rape, 92 and 53 cases of child marriages.
The NGO’s report “Cruel Numbers Report” is a research on child sexual abuse cases reported in newspapers.The purpose of the research is to provide fact and figures about child abuses and its dynamics and to contribute to the existing information on child sexual abuse in Pakistan.
The statistics showed that this year from January to June a total of 57 cases were reported of murder after sexual abuse. In the total reported 2322 cases, 1,298, 56 per cent, of victims were girls and 1024, 44 per cent, were boys.
The data revealed that 622 children in the ages between 11 and 15 years and 526 children between the ages between 6 and 10 years were most vulnerable to abuse. He said 65 per cent cases were reported from Punjab, 25 pc from Sindh, 3 pc from Islamabad, 3 pc from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, two pc from Balochistan, 21 from AJK and two cases were reported from GB in newspapers.
Out of the total reported cases, 74 pc belonged to the rural areas and 26 pc to the urban areas. As many as 89 pc of the cases were registered with the police, whereas, police refused to register 32 cases, it was said.
PEF: Punjab Education Foundation (PEF) is fully aware of the financial and administrative issues of its partner schools, our primary priority is to continue financial assistance to low cost schools and provision of clean, hygienic and secure environment to students with timely supply of text books.
Punjab Education Foundation Managing Director Tariq Mahmood said this while heading a weekly coordination meeting with programme directors in the PEF office here on Friday. He directed the programme directors to speed up process of the payment to PEF partner schools.
Meanwhile, director monitoring & evaluation briefed on the matters related to routine monitoring of schools and quality assurance test during the year. Similarly, director finance discussed the plan for distribution of text books in the next academic year 2019-20.
A PEF spokesperson said, PEF has started its teacher training under teacher development programme in the financial year 2018-19 as teachers’ training was correlated with quality education – mission of PEF.
He said, “There are two levels of training programme, first level will start from 27 to 31 August and the second level will continue from 3 to 7 September”.
In the 10-day training program, master trainers and teacher trainers of PEF will conduct 126 training sessions. He also said that 3,888 teachers will get training on latest concepts and teaching methodologies.
PSCA: Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) identified a murderer through cameras who had dropped off a suitcase containing the body of a youth in the Sherakot police area. The victim identified as Wajahat Ali was kidnapped in the Liaqatabad area some days back. Punjab Safe Cities Authority has handed over the footage of the murderer to the investigation police concerned.