Addressing the issue of child sexual abuse in Pakistan: A conceptual analysis

Abstract

Drawing on academic and government literature and the authors’ professional experience in working with child sexual abuse (CSA), this article details the current issues in Pakistan within a global context of Asia. This discussion addresses the context of CSA in Pakistan, causes and incidence of CSA, reporting of CSA, lack of effective structures to protect children, public education for CSA, and finally discusses the example of Punjab Province in Pakistan and its approach to dealing with CSA. The article contributes to an understanding of current reporting, intervention, and treatment of victims of CSA in Pakistan from a social work/policy perspective.

Enhancing children’s awareness of sexual abuse in Pakistan with video literacy interventional cartoons

“…News reports allow us to gauge the scale of child sexual abuse in Pakistan, but apart from those, Pakistan lacks reporting and methodological means to assess the incidents more accurately [4]. According to a review of child sexual abuse prevalence studies by Townsend and Rheingold [8], about 1 in 10 children is likely to be sexually abused before their 18th birthday.…”

“…Hindrances are many: legal, state, religious, cultural, family, and sexual or gender barriers. Rights of children are protected in the Constitution, but because of the stigma, lack of education, lack of human development infrastructure and the children's vulnerable stage of development, the problem is still prevalent [4].…”

“…The Child Protection and Welfare Bureau in Punjab, Pakistan has had some success in enabling curriculum changes in the province but much more can be done in with curricula in educational settings to address the sexual abuse in Pakistan [4]. Use of multimedia to create awareness about CSA has been effective, however, there is still a lack of well researched educational materials that teach about personal safety [19,45].…”

“…Cases remain consistently under-reported in Pakistan [3]. Cultural, religious, legal, state, and gender or sexual barriers exacerbate stigma associated with seeking proper help [4]. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the incidence of child sexual abuse in Pakistan increased by 30% in 2021 compared to the previous year.…”

Topic Modeling as a Tool to Analyze Child Abuse from the Corpus of English Newspapers in Pakistan

“…Moreover, a security-focused narrative and socioeconomic realities such as poverty are the main priorities of policymakers, which hinders child protection laws (Abbas, 2021). On the other hand, studies based on the context in Pakistan suggest that the lack of adequate state structures paves the way for child abusers to avoid penalties (Granich et al, 2021). Topics 8 and 9 refer to child abuse law proceedings and procedural delays in child abuse cases which implies that the delay in these cases becomes why the child abuse cases are not reported (Hussain, 2011;Jabeen, 2016).…”