Cases of sexual violence against children are increasing in Pakistan’s Punjab province and the number of young boys is more than 50% among these children.
Recently, the Punjab Home Department has sent a report of its subsidiary Provincial Intelligence Center to the Punjab Police, which states that in the first five and a half months of this year, 1390 cases of sexual violence against children have been reported across the province. Come forward.
Among them, there were 959 cases in which minor boys were the victims of rape. Gujranwala district had the highest number of 220 incidents in which 158 boys were affected.
According to the Home Department report, cases were registered in almost all of these incidents and during investigation, it was found that mostly three types of accused were involved in sexual violence against minors: relatives, neighbors and strangers.
The report says that in more than 700 cases the accused have been brought before the courts and it has been found that in more than 55% of the cases, the children’s ‘neighbors’ and in more than 13% their ‘relatives’ are involved. .
In more than 400 cases, investigations have not been completed while 148 cases have been closed. These are the cases in which the families of the child victims and the accused settle and withdraw their complaints.
The Home Department has also made some recommendations regarding the prevention of such incidents as a part of the report, in which it was asked to improve the efficiency of various institutions and to create more coordination between the institutions.
There is also a point that the police should keep a database or record of missing or abducted children for review and policy formulation.
