Abuse and exploitation of children can be prevented in the majority of these cases by reforming the law related to reporting of missing and separated children at the police station level.
According to an assessment by the child rights NGO, Roshni Helpline, majority of parents and families are unable to get the police help in search and recovery of their missing and separated children because of deficiency in the law. The assessment is based on interviews of walk-in clients, who include parents and children caretakers.
It is irony to note that the missing of children is not considered cognisable offence; therefore police do not investigate theses cases. “The cases of missing children are noted down in the daily diary commonly known as roznamcha or register number two,” said Muhammad Ali, president of the Roshni Helpline. “All matters of routine are noted down in this diary. For example, the report of a lost ID cards and other documents are noted down.”
All these crimes fall into non-cognisable offences. It means that police do not have legal jurisdiction to investigate such matters with prior permission of a qualified magistrate. A simple message is run over the wireless, which is simultaneously heard by all police officials on patrol. “This also provides an excuse to police for not investigating the cases of missing or separated children,” said Ali.
The Section 55 of Criminal Procedure Code of Pakistan does not allow the police take cognise of information provided to them under this section.
According to the Roshni Helpline assessment, many children reported missing are subjected to all sorts of exploitation including sexual abuse and harassment, and more alarming, are murdered.
If police are given jurisdiction and made to consider the cases of missing children as an FIR and investigate promptly, many children could be searched and recovered safely. “It is the basic flaw in the law on reporting of missing children which increases the vulnerability of missing children to various crimes, and make the families helpless in getting due and timely help from the police,” the Roshni Helpline president said.
It is high time these laws should be revisited and reformed and missing of children is considered as crime so that a timely action by police will prevent these children from exploitation and crimes committed against them.
The responsibility on the part of government and legislatures to reform the laws increases manifold in the context of ratification of many international legal instruments on protection and safety of children by Pakistan. These laws, for example, United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child cannot be implemented on the merit and in its spirit unless government changes the law on reporting of missing children. “It is very important that the government brings the local laws at par with these international instruments to make the protection and safety of children really meaningful. There is no use signing of these instruments otherwise,” Ali said.
