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| Check child abuse and coporal punishment in India & Pak | | |
As far as victimisation and ill-treatment of children are concerned India and Pakistan have something common to share though the contours of child abuse are different.While of late the cases of child abuse in India have doubled,in certain areas.It has tripled,in Pakistan where it is sheer rough treatment of children within their homes and corporal punishment in schools.If a boy is beaten to death on charges of having indulged in smoking it can happen possibly only in Pakistan.Reports have revealed that a Gujranwala man beat his 10-year-old son to death for smoking.Well it is quite a rare incident but what has come to stay in Pakistan is corporal punishment, especially in educational institutions. One survey from 2009 says that corporal punishment was used in 89 per cent of Punjab's schools. Yet despite the prevalence of corporal punishment in society comprehensive legislation addressing the problem is still lacking. The response of the state to tackling this issue indicates that protecting children from violence and abuse is quite low on the government's list of priorities. The only province to have passed significant legislation concerning children's welfare is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; the Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan authorities have all issued notifications banning corporal punishment.
However, these efforts have failed to eradicate the cruel practice, mainly because government notifications are not replacements for proper laws. Another issue is addressing corporal punishment in madrasas. As many seminaries are not registered, this puts them outside the purview of government enforcement. Though in India the scale of corporal punishment is on a lower side than in Pakistan but the level of child abuse of various dimensions and forms continue to be barbaric acts in India.A survey has revealed that children belonging to very poor families in backward states,including Bihar,Jharkhand and Odehsa,are brought from either by the placement agencies or touts to the cities where they are engaged as servants in different households.Majority of the these family members ill treat these children.There are instances where the bogus placement agencies and touts lure these female kids to prostitution.
Sociat scientists and educationists are of the opinion that those youngsters who are beaten in schools or by their employers not only become alienated from the educational process, they also develop emotional and psychological problems, often repeating the cycle of violence once they enter adulthood. The provinces need to formulate laws that disallow corporal punishment at public and private schools and children's welfare institutions. While the law prohibiting corporal punishment in Pakistan has some loopholes,in India the tragedy is that laws against corporal punishment and against child abuse are not enforced strictly.Hence the establishments in both India and Pakistan need to review the situation and initiate measures that would prevent agencies and individual from encouraging child abuse,child prostitution and corporal punishment.One report said that following marked drop in the incidents of corporal punishment in schools the literacy rate has doubled in India during the last two decades.If India and Pakistan fail to check child abuse and corporal punishment they would be blamed for encouraging a barbaric society.
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