Karachi: An increasing number of rape and sexual abuse cases, involving children, are being reported in the city as 163 such incidents have been reported this year, The News Tribe has learnt.
Police arrested 23 persons, said to be involved in rape cases, but has been unable to put a single person, claimed to be arrested in different cases, behind bars a the criminals easily got bail from court, which shows poor performance of police.
In many of these cases, the victims, especially children were subjected to severe physical torture, causing deaths in some instances.
According to the data collected by this scribe on cases
of sexual violence in Karachi from January to November more
than 163 incidents occurred in the city. Of them, 41 cases (33 per
cent) were of children under 17, 73 cases (54 per cent) were of those below the age of 18 while in 65 cases people above the age of 18 were involved.
The data has been collected from different private and public hospitals, including Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Civil Hospital Karachi and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.
Data of rape cases shows that the First Information
Report (FIR) was not registered in 84 per cent of the cases.
43 rape cases were registered in different police stations of the city during the last 11 months, sources said and added that the official record of the
number of FIRs registered and the medico-legal examination conducted
in the sexual assault cases shows serious discrepancy.
162 medico-legal examinations were conducted at three government
hospitals; however, the number of FIRs registered was only 42.
While 51 rape cases were also reported at six private hospitals as the victims were neither interested to register FIR nor be a part of any medico-legal process.
Some of the rape cases were also reported at low-cost private hospitals of
C category, which do not maintain their data, an official of a private hospital said.
No FIR was lodged in 86 per cent of the cases. This is a recurring trend
that needs close government scrutiny as to why police officials are
not registering cases of sexual abuse in the city.
“Decrease in the ages of survivors has been documented as a rising
trend with more and more children being targeted, most with grievous
bodily injury and some resulting in death,” police sources said,
adding that 13 cases of survivors aged less than 16 had been reported
in Karachi since Jan 2010.
The age of the youngest rape survivor was three years while the oldest
victim was of 68 years.
Bad reputation of the police department, complicated criminal
justice system, discouraging attitude of police and a lack of
awareness among victim families about the legal recourse were major
reasons behind the low number of FIRs registered in rape cases.
In case of Karachi, the conviction rate was only three per cent in
such cases; sources said and added that victims’ families prefer jirga
system. They often seek help from jirga’s as the mechanism has the charm to deliver ‘speedy justice’.
“Common people do not trust the criminal justice system which involves
complex procedures. Take for instance the cases of Kainat Soomro and
Nasima Labano that attract a lot of media coverage. They were reported in
2007 and the convictions were announced in 2010. But, the matter is still
pending due to appeals,” sources said.
The sources claimed that there are dozen of complaints that some MLOs
deliberately make weak reports against victims, and their final decision is left on the submission of chemical reports, which are often delayed.
There are 250 policewomen and 29,000 policemen in Karachi and
female police officers “have no role as they have been left redundant”, sources revealed and added that women police officers should register rape victims’ cases and carry out their investigation.
He said that women police officers should be empowered, as they are
not legally bound to a specific territory and can conduct investigations anywhere in the province.– By M T Habib
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