10 children per day

Capital suggestion
The Punjab Police: With 180,000 active members this is one of the largest police organisations on the face of the planet. The annual budget of Rs82 billion converts to Rs450,000 per member and amounts to a contribution of Rs6,000 every year by each and every family that resides within Punjab’s 205,344 square kilometres.
Mushtaq Sukhera, the head of the Punjab Police, is the Provincial Police Officer (PPO) or the Inspector General Police (IGP). The Punjab Police is responsible for: prevention of crime detection of crime, maintenance of public order, protection of life, liberty and property (do not miss ‘prevention of crime’).
Punjab budget: In 2014-15, Rs870 million was allocated for ‘child protection’. In 2015-16, the budgetary allocation for ‘child protection’ went down to Rs530 million, a hefty 40 percent fall. What that means is that the government of Punjab spends a paltry Rs15 per year for protection per child. Amazingly, in 2015-16, the budgetary allocation for ‘plant protection’ stood at Rs580 million (10 percent higher than ‘child protection’).
Saba Sadiq, MPA, is the chairperson of the Child Protection & Welfare Bureau, Government of the Punjab. Shockingly, over the past five years, the number of reported cases of child sexual abuse has gone up by 55 percent. For the record, the budget for the same has gone down by 40 percent. For the record, Saba Sadiq raised absolutely no objection to the 40 percent cut in the budgetary allocation for ‘child protection’.
Cruel numbers: Sahil, an organisation that works exclusively on child protection, especially against child sexual abuse, has a set of cruel numbers. Over the past five years, nearly 14,000 cases of child sexual abuse were reported. Of the total, 70 percent of the reported cases of sexual abuse pertain to girls (ages 5-18 years). Of the total, 65 percent of the reported cases of sexual abuse are from rural areas.
In 2014, a total of 3,508 cases of child sexual abuse were reported – and that is 10 children being sexually abused per day every day of the year.
Government of Punjab: The first reaction was to deny that sexual abuse ever took place. The second reaction was to confuse real issues. And the third reaction was to announce the establishment of a commission.
Societal reaction: Child sexual abuse, for the Pakistani society at large, is either not a priority or is a socio-religious taboo to even seriously talk about it. In Lahore and in Islamabad only a few dozen showed up to demand better infrastructure – law, institutions and enforcement – to better protect our children from sexual abuse. Remember, no demand from the voters, no supply from the elected.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly: The assembly passed a joint resolution terming the Kasur incident more “harrowing than the Army Public School massacre”.
Recommendations: Ten children are being abused sexually per day every day of the year (actual cases of child sexual abuse could be as high as ten times the reported numbers). The federal and the provincial governments must do three things: legislate child protection laws, laws with teeth; allocate sufficient funds and, third, raise public awareness.
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.
Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com. Twitter: @saleemfarrukh