Pakistan must crack down hard on child sex abuse

The shocking child sex abuse racket that has come to light in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, wherein young children were being forced into performing sexual acts and videographed for blackmailing their families, has sparked socio-economic and political flash points the government of Pakistan needs to deal with urgently. Here are some questions it needs to answer: how soon will the perpetrators of this crime be caught and duly punished? (Seven members of the gang have been arrested so far and the government must not stop until every individual involved in this crime is caught). How efficiently will justice be done? How soon, and how effectively, will the abused, traumatised children be rehabilitated emotionally and socially? What kind of recompense will be provided for the families of these children who have been suffering for more than a year as their offspring were being debased and exploited? And, most important, what can be done to ensure that incidents of such nature do not recur?

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has vowed to spare no effort in punishing the perpetrators but such pronouncements must stay the course of time and be proven to be result-oriented, even in the face of conflicting vested interests that are roiling this scandal regarding the complicity of the police and the perpetrators. Democracy in Pakistan faces many challenges, political and social, and Sharif needs to show the world that when it comes to ridding his country of scourges such as this, he has an iron will.