Children of a Lesser State

As I looked into the beautiful eyes of 5 year Sumbul lying on the hospital bed, I felt rush of emotions- love, anger, shame, anxiety and a feeling of indignity. She looked scared but serene, oblivious of the extent of the uproar this incident had created. But beneath that almost deceptive stillness, one could sense her discomfort. The doctors told me she was out of danger and will start feeling much more comfortable with passage of time. I told him that she was in severe danger and would start feeling uncomfortable with passage of time.

Such incidents happen around us all the time and most of them are neither reported nor noticed. Rape is the most psychologically violent attack on a human being. When the doctor told me that fortunately she was 5 years old and would not remember much as she grows old, I was aghast. I told him that these are the most important formative years of a child’s life and these scars will probably ruin her chances of ever leading a normal life until some special counseling and therapy are given to her throughout. He looked bemused.

Why we see such barbaric and violent eruptions in our society have roots in many areas. Poverty, illiteracy, deprivation are all causes of creating disbalanced societies. Sumbal was one of the siblings of a family of ten brothers and sisters. Most poor people have an average family size of ten to fifteen including grandparents etc living in one or two rooms. What sort of privacy or learning do you expect in this environment. Inter family rapes, incest or molestation are common. Most rapists or molesters become so as they are diagnosed as having been molested or raped themselves.

As poverty and illiteracy increases, so does terrorism and violence. Women are the easiest targets. The fact that Islam started with the movement of woman rights, as females were buried alive before the advent of Islam, is not really worth mentioning in our Islamic khutbas. Enlightened religious scholars on media need to portray this repeatedly.

At Government level, that is why it is important that instead of spending 12 $ billion on building up New Islamabad city and wasting money on steel and bricks, spend on education, spend on building human potential, spend on making people’s lives livable.

On social and individual level teach people around us to raise voices against injustice, create awareness on family issues and relearn and repeat the importance of human values of respect, of dignity, of integrity. No child is a child of a lesser God and we need to ensure equality, equity and opportunity to them to give them a chance of being that “human” God created them to be.