In a small village school on the outskirts of Islamabad, Farhat Naz’s 10-year-old daughter, Warrisha, and other students are watching an animated movie. The film, ostensibly about the adventures of two schoolchildren, is scripted to teach young viewers how to keep themselves safe. The screening is followed by a 20-minute discussion in which students work through a series of scenarios – all designed to help them live in a world that is not always as innocent as they are.
In Pakistan, a conservative country in which even allusions to sexual abuse are taboo, raising awareness about child safety is far from straightforward. But parents such as Ms. Naz say they welcome the opportunity to talk about the issue and learn how to keep their children out of harm’s way.
“It isn’t something that our parents ever discussed with us,” she says. “As well as teaching our children how to be more careful, these sessions have taught us how to guide them as parents.”
Why We Wrote This
A story focused on
Raising awareness about child safety is far from straightforward in conservative Pakistan. But parents welcome the opportunity to talk about the issue and learn how to keep their children out of harm’s way.
Ishrat Shaheen, the proprietor of the school in the impoverished village of Kuri, notes that the most difficult aspect of this kind of teaching is finding the appropriate words. This is why she relies on the Pakistani nonprofit Rozan to oversee the sessions.
Today’s session is led by Fauzia Yaqub, who has been with Rozan for more than 15 years. The scenarios she presents to the children include how to react if a stranger offers them candy and how to differentiate between good and bad touches.
“When we started working in these communities … parents would say that they were too embarrassed to discuss this issue with their children,” Ms. Yaqub says. “Now, because of our work, children have started telling us about their experiences themselves.”
Rozan, named after the Farsi word for “window,” was set up in 1998 with the goal of eradicating domestic violence from Pakistani society. In addition to its work on child protection, Rozan teaches young men to dissociate violence with masculinity. In Kuri, for example, Rozan holds workshops in which men are guided to understand how violence begets violence.
“We believe that violence and development are incompatible,” says the group’s managing director, Babar Bashir.
He adds, “Though violence manifests itself in many ways, it disproportionately affects those who have less power in society.”
An atmosphere of impunity
Children are the most vulnerable segment of Pakistani society, Mr. Bashir says.
According to UNICEF, nearly 3% of Pakistani children are caught up in forced labor, performing domestic work or working in agriculture or exploitative brick kilns. And according to a recent study from a Pakistan-
based nongovernmental organization, more than 3,600 cases of sexual and physical abuse of children were reported last year to provincial police departments. Overall, Pakistan ranks 153rd out of 194 in the KidsRights Index, which measures countries’ performance in protecting children’s rights.
Rozan acknowledges that the numbers on child abuse might underestimate the problem.
The difficulty of finding precise statistics stems from the shame that is often associated with having a family member who has been abused. Because of that shame, parents are often reluctant to report incidents of sexual abuse to the police. This can create an atmosphere of impunity that emboldens perpetrators to keep abusing children.
For Rozan, the best way to protect children is to break the taboo around discussions of child abuse. Rozan has trained more than 1,000 volunteers to go into communities around the country and raise awareness of this issue.
“Rozan [volunteers] are experts as far as child sexual abuse is concerned,” says Arshad Mahmood, a specialist in child protection who works with the British Council, an international charity.
Breaking the cycle
Rozan also aims to reduce violence among young men. In a workshop in Kuri, a Rozan volunteer uses a sequence of drawings to show how one act of incivility can set off a chain reaction that ends up permeating every level of society.
For instance, a company director might chastise one of his employees. That employee might take out his frustration on a subordinate. That subordinate might go home and treat his spouse with unkindness. That spouse might hit the couple’s child, and so forth.
The sessions are largely interactive, with Rozan’s volunteers encouraging participants to lean on their own experiences to guide their peers toward a deeper understanding of how violence destroys lives and compromises the social fabric of communities.
“Our approach revolves around the idea of self-awareness,” says Mr. Bashir, Rozan’s managing director. “The first thing we do whenever we go out into the field is to ask people to reflect on … the baggage that has contributed to making them who they are.”
Those who participate in Rozan’s workshops attest to their impact.
“Before Rozan came to our village, it was pretty common to hear about instances of violence in our community,” says Ehtisham Ishtiaq, who has been attending the sessions for several years. “Now, there may be incidents here and there, but violence, as a whole, is no longer as prevalent.”
