Enacted around three years ago by the provincial assembly, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act, 2010, has started bearing fruit. Recently, the Peshawar district and sessions judge in his capacity as child protection judge issued two important orders.

In the first ever conviction in the offence of child pornography, the judge convicted a juvenile offender and sentenced him to four years imprisonment on two counts along with a fine of Rs330,000.

The convict along with his friend, who has been absconding, had made a porn video clip of a minor girl who was his co-villager. He had first blackmailed the girl and forced her to steal gold ornaments and cash from her residence and later when she could not fulfill his demands he disseminated the video clip through internet, CDs and cell phone.

The judge, Shehbar Khan, convicted the boy under section 48 (child pornography) and section 50 (exposure to seduction) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection and Welfare Act (CPWA), 2010. Under both the sections he was sentenced to four years imprisonment each and a total fine of Rs330,000.

The FIR of the case was registered at police station Urmer on Jan 5, 2012. The victim, who was around 16 at that time, alleged that she was forcibly taken away by the two boys. She alleged that she was sexually abused by them and also her movie was shot. However, the boy was not convicted for the offence of sexual abuse as the court ruled that the evidence on record did not prove that.

Similarly, in another case the judge handed over a minor boy of nine accused of theft to a child protection officer. The boy was arrested early this month by Hayatabad police in Peshawar. He was serving as a child domestic servant at a residence and was accused of stealing an expensive gun, a laptop computer and some other items. After his arrest he was sent to prison by a local judicial magistrate.

Program manager of the Society for Protection of Rights of the Child Akber Ali Shah had sent a letter to the district judge about the presence of the boy in the prison. Later, when the judge visited the Peshawar Central Prison he spotted the boy and ordered he should be handed over to child protection officer.

For the first time through the CPWA several child-related offences were declared penal offences. An almost identical law, The Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act was enacted by the assembly in 2004. The law enacted by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government was almost on the same pattern, but with various improvements.

The offences incorporated in the Act include: child pornography, child sexual abuse, sale in child organs, corporal punishment, child begging and child trafficking.

The law provides that if a person is found guilty of dealing in organs of a child he or she is liable to be sentenced to death or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to fine of up to Rs1 million. Similarly, whoever involves himself in child trafficking within Pakistan shall be punishable with imprisonment not less than 14 years. Corporal punishment is also now an offence punishable up to six months of imprisonment or with fine of up to Rs50,000 or both. Moreover, the offence of child sexual abuse carries punishment of up to 14 years imprisonment and fine up to Rs1 million.

Under the Act, several child protection institutions have to be set up, including the Child Protection and Welfare Commission, child protection units on district level, child protection institute etc.

So far child protection units have been set up in Peshawar, Mardan, Swabi, Buner, Swat, Kohat, Abbottabad and Charsadda to provide services to child victims of violence, abuse, discrimination etc.

According to data compiled by the CPWC since May 2011, it had registered or taken notice of 10,179 cases related to violation of child rights, including 4,121 cases related to girls.

Deputy chief protection officer Ijaz Mohammad Khan stated that these cases pertained to different child-related issues, including corporal punishment, children in conflict with law, child marriages, abuse etc.

He stated that the commission was trying to create awareness of the law so that it could be used for the welfare of children. He added that they had been in contact with the major stakeholders including police, NGOs, lawyers, courts etc so that all of them could invoke its provisions when required.

Mr Ijaz said that to trace vulnerable children in the community and report their cases, the child protection units in each district had formed 381 child protection committees.

The Sparc annual report-2012 quoted data of Madadgar, a national helpline, according to which around 5,659 cases of violence against children were reported across Pakistan from January to October 2012. These include 945 cases related to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Advocate Akber Ali Shah, an expert on child rights, said that though the CPWA was a valuable piece of legislation, a lot more was needed to be done for its dissemination. He said that the provincial government should allocate funds for lawyers under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance and notify rules under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Borstal Act so that borstal institutions could be set up for juvenile offenders.