Sexual Abuse of Children With Disability

By Rani Wahidi

Shahid, full of life and merry making child, was sexual abused by his neighbor. While playing cricket, when ever his ball went into the house of his neighbors, and Shahid would go to collect ball, a man there would harass him by touching the private parts of his body. The very person complaint to Shahid’s elder brother saying that, Shahid disturbs him every day. This resulted in Shahid’s severe punishments. He was beaten severely by his brother.

Unluckily, Shahid is physical disabled child, unable to express himself, he is paralyzed hence words he utters are difficult to understand. He is around 13 years old. And He is the student of 6^th class at Special school in  Barrory road Quetta(Balochistan).

Shahid, at one point, decided to retaliate for the wrongs done to him. He waited for the right time and place. Eventually the day came and as usual the ball of Shahid was thrown into same house. Where the same person came out and Shahid asked for his ball. Shahid reacted when he started harassing him; he picked up the stone and hit on his head. When people gathered Shahid told them about what that man has been doing to children of the area. Resultantly, people expelled that person from that area.

Hence, he succeeded in teaching  the person a lesson and proved that it does not matter whether you are a person having any kind of disability, if you are determined, confident to fight for your rights, you can say NO and answer to all those who humiliate you any way. “I’m relaxed now and no one will ever harass me and now I can play cricket every day as freely” Shahid exclaimed with joy.

When asked how he was able to get courage to react to this act of harassment, he shared that once WomenShade and Ujala team, visited his class mates’ (Abdullah’s) sister school in recent days. The team gave awareness about good touch and bad touch to the students and sister shared these with Abdullah. Abdullah shared this during the break time with me when we were having our lunch. Hence I got courage to say no and reacted to abuse. Shahid  is now leading a joyful live.

Reported cases in 2018 and showed that there were 923 cases of abduction, 452 cases of missing children, 537 cases of rape and 589 cases of sodomy, 345 cases of attempted rape, 282 cases of gang sodomy, 150 cases of gang rape and 130 cases of child marriages.

Children with disability are extra vulnerable to sexual abuses, and parents need to be extra careful regarding safety of children with disability.

According to a teacher, who doesn’t want to be named, of special school, sexual harassment with students happens because there are disable child and people can easily abuse them because they cannot share to their parents. Unfortunately, Parents do not pay similar attention to their disabled children as they do to their normal ones, making them more prone to harassment and abuse.

Published in Monthly WomenShade  June 2019.

Mother has been insulted and rights are violated  in the very place  where the rights of women are supposed to be guaranteed.

Ms. Mahjabeen Sheeran has kicked off lobbying for Baby day care center in Balochistan Assembly after she had an unpleasant experience when she brought her unwell infant daughter into Assembly during the session  on 3rd  may 2019. Sheeran was expelled from the Assembly; many MPAs also objected the presence of her child. Sheeran answered the objections by saying that "mother cannot leave children alone when there are sick".

Ms. Mahjabeen Sheeran is a mother of infant daughter, and she is MPA of Balochistan provincial Assemble, parliamentary secretary law and rights of women. She belongs to Balochistan Awami Party. She came in reserved seats in 2018, she is from Kech district.

Initially people appreciated her on the social media with some hash tag slogan #More power to women of Balochistan and working women. Unfortunately, the act of  bringing daughter to chamber, caught  her in a embarrassing situation, she was informed by  the staff of Assembly during the session that children are not allowed into assembly, because it's against the rule. The idea of setting up daycare center for women parliamentarians, next to women chamber room was rejected by secretary of assembly saying that, "this room is for ministers, and cannot be used for any other purpose".

Later she tried to convince the secretary assembly for allotment of a room next to women chamber. Astonishingly the incident happened in front of all mainstream media of Pakistan, and none of them paid head to it. Had it happened in western countries, it would have been breaking news. It also goes to show insensitivity of the media towards gender and women rights.  This incident wills discourage mothers and women all over country to participates in politics'. However the approach of right based origination and right activist is also questionable, they did not raise voice for this unwanted, 

undesirable and shameful act, In one hand we are celebrating mother days, on the another hand  mother has been insulted and rights are violated  in the very place  where the rights of women are supposed to be guaranteed.

Published in Monthly WomenShade May 2019