LAHORE:
To date, Pakistan has not been able to devise formal legislation on the practice of adoption of children, although a significant number of married couples receive temporary custody of abandoned children every year.
As a result, there is no effective monitoring system to avoid the abuse of adopted children, who are orphaned twice against exploitation, abuse and negligence not reported that occurs in silence behind closed doors.
According to Syed Kausar Abbas, head of the Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO), it is necessary to design legislation on the monitoring of children granted in temporary custody.
“The authority that grants temporary custody must form a committee that can go to the homes of adoptive families and personally evaluate the condition of these children, who run the risk of exploitation. It is possible that a family adopts a child from Punjab and another from Sindh Sindh due to the lack of availability of digital data on the digital custody of children.
Abbas’ concerns are not unfounded given the gloomy registration of violence of the province against children. Sahil’s figures, an organization focused on abuse and child exploitation, reveal that 1,630 cases of child abuse throughout the country were reported in the first six months of 2024, 862 of which they involved sexual abuse. Girls represented 59% of all reported cases, underlining the gender nature of the crisis.
“In the absence of an effective monitoring system, there are concerns that boys adopted, especially girls, can coerce in trafficking in people or other heinous activities in the dark network. There is no mechanism to verify the condition of the adoptive child, which could be exposed to all kinds of damage,” said Rashida Qureshi, a gender expert and coordinated in the lawyer of the children’s network.
In January 2023, an organ trafficking gang was discovered in Rawalpindi after a 14 -year -old from Lahore was found with his retired kidney in an underground laboratory. In addition, according to the statistics obtained from the Federal Research Agency (FIA), a 336 percent increase in cases of cyber pornography during the last six years in Punjab, the largest province in the country, was reported.
Iphtikhar Mubarak, head of the search for justice, revealed that, although section 28 of the Punjab unworthy and careless children’s law, 2004, played an important role in the attention, protection and rehabilitation of indigent and careless children, the monitoring system was still inefficient.
“A social worker or a social worker must be appointed to monitor each child who is adopted while the guardians who submit the child in court must be requested from time to time. This will allow judges to personally evaluate the condition, development and well -being in general of the child. He can submit periodic reports about the child’s welfare, especially in the event that the child has been taken abroad.
On the other hand, Sarah Ahmed, president of the Office of Child Protection and director of the Provincial Parliamentary Committee on the Rights of the Child, said that the Child Protection Court provided the temporary custody of abandoned children.
“The couple adopted by the child will compare with the child on the date set by the court. They are asked about the health and care of the child. If the child can tell themselves, they are taken separately and compiles and a report is placed in the child’s custody file. The families of children taken abroad are contacted through video calls and certified related to their education and health are reviewed,” claimed.
“To date, no case has come to light where a child given in temporary custody is not being treated and custody has had to be revoked,” said Ahmed, who revealed that 230 abandoned children were adopted by couples without children in the last five years, of which 50 children were adopted by Pakistani families who lived abroad, “he added.
