NGOs call for legislation to prevent child abuse

Different Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have urged the government to pass effective legislation for preventing child abuse as 2004 has been declared as "year of child welfare and rights" in Pakistan. This was stated by Society for Protection of Child Rights Pakistan on the occasion of "World Day on the Prevention of Child Abuse" here on Friday. They said that government should formulate an effective legislation for the protection of children specially at work.
About 50 percent of our population comprise on children and their well being is primary responsibility of the government.
It condemned the brutal treatment meted out to a domestic child worker by a bureaucrat and his wife in Islamabad and said that urgent legislation was required to deal with the problem of children, which are earning their subsistence as domestic workers. The NGO demanded of the government that civil servants should be banned to hire under aged domestic workers.
While presenting the over view of children plight in country, the Sparc representative stated that children were frequently being victimised but there was no proper law to bring abusers to justice.
In Pakistan hardly any parent, teacher, guardian, police officer, etc has been taken to task for abusing a child in any capacity.
The NGO further said that usually weak and defenceless children became the victims of the worst forms of violence that existed in the society. Children were beaten and tortured, sometimes even killed in the name of discipline.
Talking about different kinds violence against children, Sparc stated that violence also included neglect and indifferent attitude by the parents by depriving them of food, education and healthy safe life and street children were often target of police violence. It further informed that children were easy prey for sexual abuse by adults and people who entice them with false promises force them into prostitution. In prisons, children were maltreated and abused and usually placed with hardened criminals, who exploit and sexually abuse them.