The documentary film entitled ‘Pakistan’s Hidden Shame’ sheds light towards the casually hidden atrocities of a Pakistani society. The plot of the documentary revolves around the central theme, ‘Child abuse’, which is synonymous to Pakistan’s out-in-the-open but hidden-in-plain-sight child abuse and the elements that are contributing towards it. For a Muslim dominant and conservative country, where sexuality isn’t a topic that is discussed out in the open, child abuse is uprooted by many factors aiding to its high prevalence. Pakistan is a culturally strict country where the women are kept hidden from the view to protect them from the prying eyes, but bus stations and small gullies have become a place of sexual institution for overtly sexual and perverted men who hunt on the innocent. Through one of the surveys, it has been reported that 95% of the truck drivers who participated in the survey have had performed sexual acts (sexually abused) children to quench their desire. The documentary is set in Peshawar, a small town in North-West of Pakistan. The street children in Peshawar are the sexual targets of the bus drivers, and are frequently lured to a makeshift hostel where they are bribed with some food or extra cash or shown the advantages of having sex with the older sexually-driven bus drivers. Even in the street during night time, some decent looking men take their masks off and search for children to have sex with them for payment. There are various deeply-rooted elements that eventually channeled the direction of fulfilling sexual crave and they all lead to the direction of child abuse. The reasons find a way to question the unsettling culture of gender inequality, prevalent drug addiction, societal taboos of homosexuality (as well as other sexual orientation) and undiscussable sexually transmitted diseases to upscale growing child abuse. For children living under poverty, to whom the government is also neglectful in providing basic services like shelter, food and protection, the children have no option but to cave under this dreadful situation with almost no hope of leaving it behind. One of the boys featured is Naeem, a 13-year-old who is also succumbed towards the thorns of child abuse, a victim once abused by his predators, has now become an abuser. His drug addiction has led him to almost suicide and wishes he’d never been born.
According to the Joyful Heart Foundation, ‘brain development of the child is greatly influenced and responds to the experiences with families, caregivers, and the community’. Often, physical abuse could result to physical and mental problems, including re-victimizing, personality disorders, post-traumatic stress disorders, dissociative disorders, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation ,eating disorders, substance abuse, and aggression (Havoca, 2014).
In relation to these issues, certain authorities such as Family, Media, Government, International Community, Religious Leaders, Citizens/Society and Law need to address them through their specific dominion. This paper presents my personal opinions likewise some cited sources about the role of these authorities to address these issues.
1. Family
From the documentary, it is quite visible that the children who are the victims of child abuse come from the families well-rooted under poverty. To make the situation more stressful, the family of the abused have barely enough money to keep roof under the heads of their children. As a result, the children, instead of going to schools and get proper education, get roved into child labour. The family, especially the elders such as their father figure and mother figure, set a bar of minimum wage that they need to earn per day to keep the roof above their heads. Hence, they look for other alternatives to gain some money to not upset their parents and commit to child-prostitution. Even in the documentary, Naeem was thrown out of his house by his brother because he couldn’t bring the bare minimum and also couldn’t deal that his little brother had gotten involved in prostitution. The role of the family is to support the victim of abuse, here, their child rather than going against them. The first and foremost thing that any family needs to do for the victims is to treat them as one rather than someone without conscience who just happened to stumble into drug addiction or child-prostitution. Family should be the source of emotional support and help them cope up with the situation through their constant and consistent support.
For culturally strict countries like in South Asia, it is especially difficult to direct their way away from their religion. Homosexuality though legalized in many western countries, still hasn’t found its course in South Asia, apart from India. But, what can be done is that, anyone whose sexual orientation do not fit the society’s current standards, should be given emotional support from the family. Whether we’ve expected this or not, our children shouldn’t be the reflection of what we didn’t achieve. Naming them as society’s outcast could lead them towards psychological problems, even depression or they may get involved in drug addiction. Family is the first and needed option for constant emotional support.
2. Citizens/Society
No matter how many times we try to deviate from societal construct, unless we are living by ourselves in a remote place, society and its citizens will always have some roles to play in our personal lives. Everyone should be able to live on their own terms. In retrospect to this, the victims of child abuse, people still involved in or with drug addiction, anyone with sexual orientation against the society’s normal standards, or people suffering from sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/Aids, Gonorrhea, Chlamydia generally are stigmatized in the society. Instead of finding the root causes of why they’ve been recurring, a contemporary society in South-Asian culture finds the idea of tearing the victim down and blaming them more sustainable. It takes some time to normalize societal taboo, but that does not necessarily mean that society doesn’t accept something they do not find ‘normal’. As from the documentary, it can be seen that, the perverted men, the drug-enticed children and adults, the social worker, the day care centre, the truck and bus stations, they are all a part of a society and each of them have equally important role to play.
It is necessary to differentiate between what is immoral and what is ‘natural’ or ‘normal’. The victims of child abuse or any stigmatized person shouldn’t be catered away and shamed rather, within the power of reasoning, the root causes need to be sorted out and should be worked accordingly. Society and its people should be open to different things against the societal standards. The drug addicts, the victims of abuse rather should be recognized openly and should be worked on. Pedophilia is more than just a taboo, it is immoral and hinders the victim’s personal growth impacting him/her mentally. The society should be able to provide an open platform to discuss the taboos and find solutions.
3. Media
From the day’s abode, media has remained an integral part of human civilization. It is the media for the masses that helps them to get information about many things while also forming opinions to make a judgement regarding various issues (Siva Sivani Institute of Management, n.d.) . Media’s portrayal in the society shouldn’t be defined as a money-mongering institution that moulds the issue for its advantage. Media should be able to address the stereotyped issues or stigmatized situations in such a way that the society, family, and an individual is able to comprehend and internalize the issue in an uncluttered way. The documentary film acts as a media for the Peshawar society as well as for the whole world to know about the non-discussed issues of child abuse in Peshawar and Pakistan as a whole, while making the audience empathize in the perspective, without targeting against the victims. The film also accounts as a source of information through which the audience can understand the situation while being more aware about it.
The role of social media in today’s modern era is more than just connecting people in virtual level. Social medias like Facebook, Twitter could be source of information. People could share the lesson’s learned, that in some way could change the mind-set of people, one person at a time.
4. Government
The world turns out to be of unrelenting insecurity without a government to provide the safety of law and order, protecting citizens from each other and from foreign foes (World Economic Forum, 2017). Ideally speaking, government should cushion the inability of citizens to provide for themselves that is: provide economic security. Likewise, in addressing the stigmatized scenario or breaking the taboos, they should be able to check on the society’s context as well as the world’s understanding to it. Talking about homosexuality, in India, recently on September 6, 2018, the Supreme Court of India decriminalised homosexuality by declaring Section 377 of the Indian penal code (Rautray, 2018). But, this wasn’t a work of just a day. It was decades’ worth of struggle to finally legalize a normal situation. Hence, with homosexuality and other sexual orientations being one of the root causes to Child Abuse in Pakistan, the law needs to be assessed clearly in such a way that it doesn’t lead to violation of human rights.
In 2008, HIV prevalence was around 30% amongst homosexuals in Pakistan (Khan, Rehan, Qayyum, & Khan, 2008) while the general prevalence of HIV among adult Pakistani population is estimated at 0.1% (Bokhari, et al., 2007). These data portray the immediate need to address these situations. The government should be able to discuss sex-education thoroughly with its citizens with formulation of rights and their implementation to protect children, especially speaking marginalised children.
5. Religious Leaders
From the documentary, it can be visibly seen that many of the abusers have a well-founded fear for their judgement against the Almighty. But, when asked about their control in sexual desire, they state that they themselves are the prey to their desire. In religiously directed countries like Pakistan, where there is strong devotion and fear due to religion, religious leaders should portray their role in addressing social stigmas without being politically manipulated however they should engage with political actors for the common good of their communities. Protection of human rights, preventing discrimination based on fundamental beliefs, and exercise of freedom and belief, could help stem the misuse of religion to drive violence (The United Nations, 2014). Victims and survivor of violence may turn to faith leaders for spiritual guidance and support because of the unique dimension they can add to the sometimes overwhelming experience of seeking health.
Hence, it requires efforts by faith leaders to not only acknowledge the issues, but also to continually educate themselves and the entire community and to join in creating responses to the taboos and be supportive for the victims and survivors (National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, 2011). This means that the leaders should not make their devotees a prey in the religion, rather encourage them to be at peace while addressing their situations.
6. Law
The law is important for a society as it serves as a norm of conduct for citizens. Article 37 (a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by Pakistan states that ‘no child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’ while in contrary, Pakistani laws do not afford a sufficient protection against other ill-treatment (World Organisation Against Torture, 2003). In Pakistan, the number of drug addicts as per a UN report is 7.6 million, with 78% being male. In addition, 40% of Pakistani drug users are HIV positive (The Diplomat, 2014). According to the report, treatment and special interventions are in short supply and the Anti-Narcotics Force of the Pakistani government tasked with combating the drug use within the country.
On the other side of the laws, cases of child abuse have been stacking on the desks of law enforcement and relevant government agencies with many questions still left unanswered. The law plays a major role in addressing these issues rather than piling them under a rug. Instead of just being an ideal case with no stagnant purpose, the law should be involved more in the implementation. It should act as a weapon to protect those abiding by it. If the law isn’t taken seriously, then it isn’t followed, and we can see it from the cases of child abuse in Peshawar. The abusers in the documentary light heartedly confess of their wrong doing since, the law in practice isn’t charging those violating it. Laws shouldn’t just be perfect theory, it should be implemented to protect those who need protection and demand justice to the guilty.
7. International Community
Protecting children against violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation is everybody’s responsibility. International community are also at the forefront of efforts to address child protection as well as they play an important role in the establishment of an effective and comprehensive child protection system (Save the Children, 2008). They have particularly significant role to play in settings where other child protection services and groups are weak (Bice International Catholic Child Bureau, 2016). They should ensure to mobilize their network for effective prevention and child protection and to provide long-term support to the child victims of sexual abuse. As in the day-care centre for the street children, in the documentary film, they were able to stay in the centre only during the day and had to leave from the centre as it didn’t have any resources for safe-keeping of the children. The day-care centre was scarcely funded and with whatever resources it had, they are not enough to sustain longer. Here, the role of international communities, whether developed nations or international organizations, is to be able to partner up with centres, organizations and institutions as such in order to provide some contribution in protection of the street children.
It is necessary for all the concerned authorities to work alongside one another to tackle all these societal taboos and destigmatize them. In the same manner, child-abuse shouldn’t be taken normally. All the authorities play an equally important role in addressing these issues and hence, should work collectively in destigmatizing them.
References
Bice International Catholic Child Bureau. (2016). Sexual Abuse: An Interregional Program to Fight Against This Scourge. Retrieved from A Bice Org Website: https://bice.org/en/fields-projects/topics/sexual-abuse/
Bokhari, A., Nizamani, N. M., Jackson, D., Rehan, N. E., Rahman, M., Muzaffar, R., . . . Inayat, T. (2007). HIV Risk in Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan: An Emerging Epidemic in Injecting and Commercial Sex Networks. International Journal of STD and AIDS, Vol 18(7), pp: 486-492.
Havoca. (2014, June 16). Effects of Child Abuse and Neglect in Adult Survivors. Retrieved from Havoca: https://www.havoca.org/effects-child-abuse-neglect-adult-survivors/
Joyful Heart Foundation. (n.d.). Joyful Heart Foundation. Retrieved 7 18, 2019, from Joyful Heart Foundation: http://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/learn/child-abuse-neglect/effects-child-abuse-neglect
Khan, A. A., Rehan, N., Qayyum, K., & Khan, A. (2008). Correlates and Prevalence of HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Hijras (Male Transgenders) in Pakistan. International Journal of STDs and AIDS, Vol (19), pp: 817-820.
National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. (2011). VAWnet. Retrieved from Role of Faith Leaders and Laity in Domestic Violence Prevention and Intervention: https://vawnet.org/sc/role-faith-leaders-and-laity-domestic-violence-prevention-and-intervention
Rautray, S. (2018). Section 377: SC Rewrites History, Homosexual Behavior No Longer a Crime . The Economic Times.
Save the Children. (2008). A Common Responsibility: The Role of Community-based Child Protection Groups in Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation. London, The United Kingdom: International Save the Children Alliance.
Siva Sivani Institute of Management. (n.d.). SSIM. Retrieved from SSIM Website: https://www.ssim.ac.in/blog/role-of-media-in-society/
The Diplomat. (2014). Pakistan: The Most Heroin Addicted Country in the World. The Diplomat. Retrieved from https://thediplomat.com/2014/03/pakistan-the-most-heroin-addicted-country-in-the-world/
The United Nations. (2014). Plan of Action for Religious Leaders from Africa to Prevent Incitement to Violence that Could Lead to Atrocity Crimes. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/our-work/Doc.16_Plan%20of%20Action%20for%20Africa.final.pdf
World Economic Forum. (2017, 2 13). 3 Responsibilities Every Government Has Towards its Citizens. Retrieved from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/02/government-responsibility-to-citizens-anne-marie-slaughter/
World Organisation Against Torture. (2003). Rights of the Child in Pakistan. Geneva, Switzerland: World Organisation Against Torture.
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