Our crocodile tears

When was the last time we debated child welfare and child protection so vigorously? Almost every week, the body of a child who is murdered after being raped is found somewhere in the country. Twelve such bodies were found in the Kasur district last year. What made the media rush to Kasur this time and why did politicians put aside their mud baskets and rush to seven-year-old Zainab’s funeral? The real news from Kasur is not the horrific murder of a girl child, but our reaction and outrage.

In all likelihood, our momentary anger is both the cause and effect of a freak news event; our tears are merely crocodile tears that will dry as soon as something equally gruesome or fantastically tantalising finds its way to the television screens. Zainab’s heartrending story somehow found its way to the middle of two great news events – the story of the Rumian marriage of Pakistan’s most eligible single man and the march of Tahirul Qadri’s army that, according to Allama Qadri himself, has been promised a prominent place in the end-of-time army of Jesus Christ. Perhaps, it was her picture – a little angel looking straight into our eyes – that melted us. She looks so familiar. Almost any middle-class parent can see the image of their own child in her.

Most children who are abused are not like her. Most news stories do not appear at such a perfect time. In 1999, Javed Iqbal, a serial killer was apprehended. He had been able to lure more than a hundred children to his house, located in a congested Lahore neighbourhood, where he killed them after sexually abusing them. There was no evidence other than the shoes of his victims, as he used to dissolve their bodies in drums of acid. Despite the scale of his brutality, no one could detect what was going on till he himself decided to go public. The police were not able to capture him till he chose to turn himself in. The story ended when he and his accomplice were found hanging in their prison cell.

Javed Iqbal had hunted his victims at the shrine of Data Ganj Bakhsh. As we all know, dozens of children from all over the province find their way to the shrine after running away from their homes or their places of work. Usually, this is the only place that they know of in the megacity and it holds the promise of free food and a sanctuary. But sanctuaries can be deceptive. They could be snares for the weak.

For centuries, our madressahs have provided refuge and education to vulnerable children. Today, stories of abuse emerge from their high walls from time to time and these madressahs are also used as a recruiting ground for extremist and militant organisations.

When I visited a small facility established by the Social Welfare Department at the shrine complex some years ago, I found a couple of well-meaning officials trying to do their best. “Our resources are too limited [but] the magnitude of the problem is too large,” an officer told me. The department tried to find runaway children from the complex and send them back with the help of a couple of charities.

It is not very difficult to imagine where these children come from. Almost all of them come from impoverished families where they are denied their childhood and face abuse. Some children flee from their abusive places of work. One child at the facility complained of sexual abuse at the house where his parents had installed him as a domestic servant. These children did not seem to know that even Data Ganj Baksh could not help them escape from their destiny.

As the law, lawyers and judges dominate our discourses, we often fail to analyse the roots of our problems and jump from one case to another. Our media fails to look at the processes behind the events. With our new political environment, almost every event can be instantly thrown into the muck and thrown at the enemy.

After all, who would like to debate the socio-economic conditions of the families that are breeding these children? The recent census showed that Pakistan’s population is growing at 2.4 percent – more than double the rate of our South Asian neighbours – with similar levels of social and economic development. Behind this growth rate lies a dysfunctional health system, a decaying education system and the denial of power to women over their bodies.

A large number of children born into poor families become an economic resource for the household. Among the poorest households, the share of the family income contributed by child workers may reach nearly 50 percent. The magnitude of child labour is huge in Pakistan. The estimates vary from four million to 12 million.

These children are also a source of good news for millions of middle-class families who find a cheap human resource in them that is available at a fraction of the cost they would be required to pay to an adult worker. How these children are treated at the homes of middle-class families is clear from two cases.

In 2010, the “tortured body” of 12-year-old housemaid Shazia Masih was recovered from the home of the former president of the Lahore Bar Association. The lawyer and his family was acquitted as the medical board had declared that the “infection in the wounds and lack of nutrition was what caused Shazia’s death.” Neither the court nor the bar found anything wrong in the fact that a senior lawyer had employed a minor and neglected her condition (or caused it), which had resulted in her death.

In 2016, an additional district and sessions judge in Islamabad, Raja Khurram Ali Khan, and his wife were charged “for their alleged involvement in keeping a ten-year-old housemaid in wrongful confinement, burning her hand over a missing broom, beating her with a ladle, detaining her in a storeroom and threatening her with dire consequences”. To my knowledge, despite the help from his community, the honourable judge remains stuck – perhaps mainly due to the media attention.

The situation of the vulnerable sections of society cannot improve without economic development, a robust social policy and reforms in our justice system. Pakistan is an elitist economy that calls itself a social democracy. Imagine a social democracy that collects merely eight percent of its GDP in taxes. Norway, a social democracy, collects 38 percent of its GDP in taxes. Even India is able to collect 16 percent of its GDP. Only fake revolutionaries can promise us the moon and the stars without demanding or doing anything to improve taxation in this country.

My dear readers, without realising it, you may be enjoying the adrenaline rush that is evoked by the hysterical rant of your favourite television anchor. Wipe your tears. A chota or choti might have prepared your breakfast by now.

The writer is an anthropologist and development professional.

Email: zaighamkhan@yahoo.com

Twitter: @zaighamkhan