LAHORE:
Till date, Pakistan has not been able to devise formal legislation on the practice of child adoption, despite the fact that a significant number of married couples are given temporary custody of abandoned children each year.
As a result, no effective monitoring system exists to prevent the mistreatment of adopted children, who are orphaned twice in the face of unreported exploitation, abuse and neglect that silently occurs behind closed doors.
According to Syed Kausar Abbas, Head of the Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO), there is a need to devise legislation over the monitoring of children given under temporary custody.
“The authority granting temporary custody should form a committee that can go to the homes of the adoptive families and personally assess the condition of these children, who are at risk of exploitation. It is possible for a family to adopt one child from Punjab and another from Sindh due to the unavailability of digital data on the temporary custody of children. This exposes adopted children to the risk of child trafficking,” warned Abbas.
Abbas’ concerns are not unfounded given the province’s grim record of violence against children. Figures from Sahil, an organisation focused on child abuse and exploitation, reveal that 1,630 cases of child abuse were reported nationwide in the first six months of 2024, 862 of which involved sexual abuse. Girls accounted for 59% of all reported cases, underscoring the gendered nature of the crisis.
“In the absence of an effective monitoring system, there are concerns that adopted children, especially girls, can be coerced into human trafficking or other heinous activities on the dark web. There is no mechanism to check the condition of the adopted child, who could be exposed to all kinds of harm,” claimed Rashida Qureshi, a gender expert and coordinator at the Children Advocacy Network Pakistan.
In January 2023, an organ trafficking gang was uncovered in Rawalpindi after a 14-year-old boy hailing from Lahore was found with his kidney removed in an underground lab. Furthermore, as per statistics obtained from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), a 336 per cent rise was reported in cases of cyber child pornography during the past six years in Punjab, the country’s largest province.
Iftikhar Mubarak, Head of Search for Justice, revealed that although Section 28 of the Punjab Destitute and Neglected Children Act, 2004, played an important role in the care, protection and rehabilitation of destitute and neglected children, the monitoring system was still inefficient.
“A case worker or social worker should be appointed to monitor every child who is adopted while the guardians should be required to present the child in court from time to time. This will allow judges to personally assess the child’s condition, development and overall well-being. However, the process must be designed and implemented in such a way that the child does not suffer emotional distress while interacting with the legal system,” implored Mubarak, who further added that an online platform could be established through which guardians or custodians can submit periodic reports on the child’s well-being especially in the case that the child has been taken abroad.
On the other hand, Sarah Ahmed, Chairperson of the Child Protection Bureau and Head of the Provincial Parliamentary Committee on Child Rights claimed that the Child Protection Court provided temporary custody of abandoned children.
“The couple adopting the child is bound to appear with the child on the date fixed by the court. They are asked about the health and care of the child. If the child is able to tell themselves, then information is taken from them separately and a report is compiled and placed in the custody file of the child. Families of the children taken abroad are contacted through video calls and certificates related to their education and health are reviewed,” claimed Ahmed.
“Till date, no such case has come to light where a child given in temporary custody is not being taken care of and the custody has had to be revoked,” claimed Ahmed who revealed that 230 abandoned children were adopted by childless couples in the last five years, out of which 50 children were adopted by Pakistani families living abroad,” she added.
