A 70-year-old man was arrested in Karachi’s Korangi area on charges of child rape. In a statement police said, the senior citizen allegedly raped a six-year-old minor girl in Korangi 2-1/2, sector 34/2.
Dawn reports, the suspect had been arrested and the rape victim had been shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medical examination, as per the police statement. Area police officer Mazhar Shah said according to the family’s statement, the child had left the house to purchase juice from a nearby shop for some guests the family was hosting.
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When the six-year-old returned home after almost half an hour she appeared ‘terrified’. When her mother asked the child what happened she pointed towards the 70-year-old neighbour’s home. The 70-year-old allegedly covered her mouth before taking her inside the home and sexually assaulting her.
The police officer said the old man lived in the area alone, while his family was in Faisalabad.
CSA and Child Rape in Pakistan
Child sexual abuse is a rampant crime in Pakistan. An NGO Sahil released a report titled ‘Cruel Numbers’, documenting CSA and child rape cases in Pakistan. According to the report as many as 1,489 children, that’s at least eight per day, were sexually abused in the first half of 2020. These victims included 785 girls and 704 boys.
In 98 cases, the victims were between the age of one to five years; in 331 cases, they were between six and 10 years of age. The largest number of cases, 490, involved victims between 11 to 15 years of age.
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The report states, the abusers were acquaintances of the victims or victims’ families in 822 cases. While in 135 reported cases the culprits were strangers.
Research asserts that in 93% of CSA cases children up to the age of 18, the victims know the abuser. The child’s trust is exploited by the abuser. They then threaten children into silence.
Pakistan ranks 147th out of the 182 countries according to an index on children’s well-being published by the KidsRights Foundation, a research and advocacy group in the Netherlands. The index ranks states by measuring factors like the prevalence of child labor, the mortality rate of children, malnutrition, etc.
Despite having ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Pakistan hasn’t made an improvement when it comes to the protection of children.
