SOUTH ASIA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

2316iron deficiency and 30 to 40 percent of children in the country suffer from stuntedgrowth. According to a family-planning NGO, up to 50 percent of children are borniodine-deficient, resulting in high rates of mental retardation. During the year, theGovernment conducted a well-publicized campaign to encourage polio vaccinations;however, there were no statistics available on the number of children who were vaccinated.Many children begin working at a very early age (see Section 6.d.). At the ageof 5 or 6, many female children assume responsibility for younger siblings.Trafficking in children is a problem (see Section 6.f.).Children sometimes are kidnaped to be used as forced labor, for ransom, or toseek revenge against an enemy (see Sections 6.c. and 6.d.). On September 11, ananti-terrorist court in Karachi convicted five men for kidnaping the 15-year-old sonof a businessman in January; three of the five defendants were sentenced to death.In rural areas, it is a traditional practice for poor parents to give children to richlandlords in exchange for money or land, according to human rights advocates.These children frequently are abused by these landlords and held as bonded laborersfor life. Landlords also have been known to pay impoverished parents for the‘‘virginity’’ of their daughters, whom the landlords then rape. Incidents of rape andthe s are common. A 1996 survey conducted in Punjab showed that 40 percent ofreported rape victims were minors, with the youngest victim in the study only 8years old. A UNICEF-sponsored study of Punjab found that 15 percent of girls reportedhaving been abused sexually. Sexual abuse of boys is more common in segmentsof society where women and girls traditionally remain within the home. AnHRCP study in the NWFP found 723 cases of sexual abuse of boys and 635 of girlsduring the first half of 1998. A newspaper reported that there were 1,025 incidentsof sexual abuse of children between January and September; in the majority ofcases, children were abused by acquaintances. There were credible reports of boysbeing sexually abused in a jail located in Punjab province during the year. At a Mayconference in Karachi on trafficking in women, speakers claimed that over 15,000child sex workers were operating in Lahore and other cities. Child prostitution involvingboys and girls is widely known to exist but rarely is discussed. All formsof prostitution are illegal and a person who abducts a child under the age of 10 andcommits sexual assault may be sentenced to the death penalty. The Shabab-i-Milli,the youth wing of the Jamaat Islami party, launched a campaign in May to combatchild prostitution by raising public awareness of the problem. The Commission ofInquiry for Women has observed that child sexual abuse is a subject that ‘‘has beenvirtually ignored,’’ and called for a public education campaign on the subject, includingintroducing it into school curriculums and training nurses and doctors in howto handle such cases.In the aftermath of a September prison riot in Hyderabad (see Section 1.c.), militarypersonnel discovered that adult prisoners abused sexually about 50 imprisonedminors. The Government did not take action against prison officials for permittingthe abuse by year’s end.Children’s rights theoretically are protected by numerous laws that incorporateelements of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. However, the Governmentfrequently fails to enforce these laws. There are two facilities—one in Karachiand one in Bahawalpur—that serve as reform schools for juvenile offenders. Thereis only one jail in each province for convicted prisoners under 21 years of age, andchildren frequently are incarcerated along with the general prison population, sharingprison conditions that are extremely poor (see Section 1.c.). Many children inprison were born to female inmates who were sexually abused by prison guards. AlthoughPunjab and Sindh provinces have laws mandating special judicial proceduresfor child offenders, in practice, children and adults essentially are treated equally.According to a local NGO, an estimated 4,200 children were held in the nation’sprisons at year’s end, some as young as 8 years old, compared with 4,000 in 1999.Imprisoned children often spend long periods of time in prison awaiting trial or ahearing before a magistrate, often in violation of the law. One child spent 3 yearsand 4 months awaiting trial. Children are subject to the same delays and inefficienciesin the justice system as adults are (see Section 1.e.). Peshawar’s jail in 1998contained 183 children, 40 percent of whom were Afghan refugees. These prisonerswere separated from the adult prisoners. According to some estimates, there are 900children in Karachi’s central jail, in a space meant to house 300; these children are18 and under. Human Rights Watch reports that children frequently are beaten andeven tortured while in detention; usually this is done to extract confessions, but itis done also to punish or intimidate child detainees or to extort payment from theirfamilies for their release (see Section 1.c.). Sexual abuse of child detainees by policeor guards is reportedly a problem as well (see Section 1.c.).VerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:46 Sep 20, 2001 Jkt 071555 PO 00000 Frm 00160 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\COUNTRYR\S71555\71555.036 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1