Islamabad, February 12, 2019 (PPI-OT): Ministry of Human Rights has started an awareness campaign to prevent child abuse on Tuesday. In his regard, Federal Minister for human rights Dr. Shireen Mazari visited the Islamabad College of Arts and Sciences in Islamabad and addressed the students against child abuse and shared suggestions to eradicate it. On this occasion, some short documentaries were also shown to the student to give them awareness and to take different preventive measures. Addressing the students, Federal Minister Dr Mazari said that child abuse has rampaged the society and on daily basis we observe different heart wrenching issues of child abuses but it is a painful fact that we treat this issue as social taboo and we become reluctant to speak about it and to educate our children.
As a result they are not able to understand the sensitivity of this issue. On the contrary, we need to make it a shameful act for the culprits which demand us to expose it, she added. She said that child abuse could be happen even at home and a child can be victimized by his/her own relatives but lack of awareness makes this situation more worst. She said that we need to take this issue seriously which requires us to recognize this issue and the parents should be open be with their children while informing them about child abuse and how they can take some preventive measures to lead a safe life.
Federal Minister said that Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) Child Protection Act already exits to ensure the protection of children and we are going to establish Child protection commission under the umbrella of ICT Act. Federal Minister said that besides, acts and their implementation, awareness is an important element to consider which could be more beneficial to fight against this abuse along with acts. Federal Minister said that education institutions can play an undeniable role to prevent child abuse and to educate students which would help them to identify the issue and to save themselves at first stage.
She stressed that we can use the platform of the schools to give the counselling to our students. Dr. Shireen Mazari further expressed that teachers’ role is undeniable in this regard and they can render this service to teach students about this abuse. In this regard, teachers can pay attention to the counselling which is very significant and impetrative. Teachers should give awareness in the classes about child abuse so that kids could be able to identify if someone attempts to abuse them adding that parents should also educate their children.
She shared that Ministry of Human Rights is running its Child protection center which provides the facilities of free education, counselling and free medical treatment to the children. In addition, Ministry of human rights has established helpline 1099 to report issues related to human rights abuses including the child abuse and Ministry would take action against culprits and will utilize all efforts to support the child and to ensure the punishment of culprit. In the end, an interactive question answer session was also conducted in which students asked different relevant questions which were responded by Federal Minister. Besides Principal of ICT, large number of faculty members and students attended the awareness session.
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