There were 500 complaints this year of abuse allegedly committed by clerics, Aamer Liaquat Hussain, a minister in the religious affairs department, said.
That compares with 2,000 last year, but as yet there have been no successful prosecutions, Mr Hussain told the BBC.
The minister’s revelations have sparked death threats and infuriated some religious political leaders.
Mr Hussain said he had received death threats from clerics, but that he had done his job and his conscience was clear.
Leaders angered
The time had come for his country to face the bitter truth - the sickness of child abuse, he said.
The allegations involving Pakistan’s Sunni majority and Shia minority referred to a tiny proportion of the country’s 10,000 or so madrassas, he said.
He added that the body responsible for them, the Federation of Madrassas, was willing to co-operate with investigations because some clerics were bringing a bad name to Islam.
However, the revelations have angered some Islamic leaders. At a parliamentary meeting this week, some demanded he apologise.
The abuse revelations were made during a week in which the Pakistani government has been meeting religious leaders to build awareness of the spread of HIV/Aids.
Pakistan is stepping up its anti-Aids campaign, and the idea is to utilise the clerics’ unique reach into communities to increase HIV/Aids awareness and to preach prevention.
what he is doing is for political reasons and what the ppl protesting against him r doing is for the same....
ppl r angered at him perhaps by the way he brought it out....
i havent seen/heard him but someone was telling me something about him that made me feel that it was the way he brought it out that was causing the anger...
plus, as i posted in religion forum, he is being accused of other things not just madrassah issue....
mullahs involved in such acts shud be publicly beheaded....
Totally a political propaganda jsut on the time when MMA's campaign againt MUsharraf is underway. This is aimed at changing the topic n make the religious party answer this issue so that their concentration against government gets week and ultimately die out.
Q.1 My question from Mr. Aamir Liquit Hussain is in which Madrassa he found out all that he is claiming?
Q.2 When and where? and what action he took against it ?
I heard him say "99.99 % madrassas are still centres of learning of light of quran and sunnah". Why only madrassas than? What about other places. WHy didn't any government minister talk about the prostitution places. I am sure it is a big problem in heera mandi and the elite places. So why is he targetting the religious education centres. Some might have a problem but bringing it out like this is shameful. It seems as if madrassas are the only place where it happens. All others are angels.
Trying to drag Islam down to the level of Catholicism...
I just wonder, how does the abuse take place, where does it take place and who does it?
If I remember correctly, the most fanciest of fancy Madrassas has a two pupil per room policy...The pupils are grouped together in their own age group, even during learning...
So if someone of similar age consents to do it, then it's not abuse, is it?
And I highly doubt that some kid from a Madrassa will resort to such an antic...They would rather castrate themselves than be involved in something like this...
The way and pace at which some Muslims are trying to be westernised, I have no doubt their wishing to have a scandal of their own would add four moons to their act...Something to go 'Ooooh' and 'Aaaah' about or something to raise a fuss about a la Americans...
All you need nowadays is for someone to raise a 'politically incorrect' issue, and these wanabe upstarts will be up in arms...
Although the desire for sensationalism, individuality and 'political correctness' is ample in these people, they seldom appear interesting or have anything relevant to say...And once when they say it, they are done and spent for a little while until they regain their strength and look for other sensations...
Mr. Hussain succesfully tapped into this mindset of mass hysteria...
its not entirely a non issue lajawab. child abuse at the hands of teachers is a very serious problem, particularly in madrassas. so common that its a stereotype, not amongst ultra westernised people but amongst normal working class loge.
why do people still send their children to study there? mostly because of the free education. there SHOULD be more publicity about this because its a disgraceful situation for a supposedly religious figure to be thought equal to a 'bachabaaz'
nobody should generalise it over all madrassas. however the fact that its common enough to be a stereotype/generalisation does suggest that the problem is serious.
they should stop bashing anyone who brings the issue up and hear him out. people, in their fear of how others would judge them often end up justifying the label.
I agree with Ravage. Most people are intelligent enough to realise that this isn't happening at all madrassah's and not all maulvis are perverted child molesters. However, to deny it even exists would be wrong. Child abuse is a huge problem, especially in south east asia where there is so much shame and stigma associated with it. People are so afraid to talk about it and would rather believe it doesn't exist.
At some point in time, religious figures from various faiths have been associated with sex abuse. We've seen it happening in the churches, mandirs and even the hari krishna's of the 60s and 70s were condemned for sexually abusing children of their followers. This is an international problem and is extremely serious. All claims should be heard in full so that these kids aren't so afraid of speaking out against it and the molestors can be brought to justice.
For all the internet jihadis here, if it was your kid being molested, you’d be cheering this liaqat fellow on.
Try not to take the negative out of everything your opposition does. Whatever the hell their intentions were, why are these mullahs doing this stuff in the first place.
And whoever brought in the name of Heera mandi - how do you even BEGIN to compare female prostitution with child molestation? They are TWO separate issues, and one i think is definitely more in need of attention than the other. You shut down Heera Mandi, other red light districts will pop up…people will be doing it in their homes and in their basements - you can’t totally eradicate female prostitution.
But the idea that these kids are being sent to madrassas because their parents can’t afford any better, and then these kids get abused (their parents dont know or dont believe them) - that is something that needs to be stopped.
And i’m glad mush’s govt is disclosing this to the people of Pakistan. Pakistanis are too misled. They think anyone with a beard who quotes the Quran is “religious” and “should be followed”. Which is quite PATHETIC, and its manifested in our own internet armchair jihadis on GS.
I hope that was harsh enough. If it wasn’t, I can step it up a notch.
are you mentally deficient? a child giving consent to being molested by a mullah?
resort to an antic? how does one resort to being raped or fondled?
this article is not referring to student-student sexual activity. it’s referring to mullah-student sexual molestation.
the lengths people like you go to deny and justify things like this is beyond me. it’s morons like you who, without second thought, quickly shoot down the messenger and write off such accusations as attempts to tarnish Islam and lies to sell newspapers - and of course there could be absolutely no possibility that it was actually true.
you would like to keep scandals like this under the rug to prevent embarassment rather than address the issue and stop the suffering of these abused children and punish these chutias?
And I guess it’s a sign of great minds to start persecutions and witch burnings based on what you read or hear about…Especially if it concerns a Muslim you are ready to burn him alive without proof or evidence, only because it concerns a Muslim…
No need to get your jhangia in a knot over what you have heard from someone else until you verify it with your own eyes and ears, that is what Islam tells us…These are just that, allegations…
Jumping the gun is a classic non-Muslim and mod-Muslim trait…And if the perpetrator happens to be a religious Muslim, the noose is ready before the trial…
Calm down…If someone can claim that these things happened then I too can at least claim that it’s unlikely…No need to chew my bloody head off…Unless you think it’s too much for you to stand…Then you can chew my head off…
That’s sick, lajawab, real sick. Yet you guys have no problem in crying bloody murder when someone in your camp is accusing of doing something, and yet the facts are not out in the table.
Its people like you who accuse mushy and his actions, people like you accuse anyone who is trying to make things better. You can call this a political scam, but its a good thing that finally some PAKISTANI has the SENSE (given that most do not , as manifested in YOU) to try to get down to what’s going wrong and fixing it.
Frankly, Liaqat, as much as he loves to sing naats on TV that make me want to throw a brick at it, is the only one I see that is making the ATTEMPT to bring wrong-doers to punishment.
These mullahs are sick, and so are you. Go off and molest the kids in your neighborhood now, mullah sahab.
^ I can see you are angry...At what? Me? The Mullahs? The crimes?
I am sorry, but I can't seem to get angry over something which someone alleges...That's a theory of pre-emption and is best left to Americans...
I am a Muslim...I cannot be angered over something which is as yet alleged...Look up, it says in the article 'alleged'...Alleged means something that might have happened and might not have happened...
You on the other hand have become so worked up that you are telling me to go molest children in my neighbourhood, all because someone said that something happened allegedly...How sad is that...
PCG...Your house is allegedly on fire and will consume it entirely if you don't run out in 5 seconds and save yourself...Now move!
Sorry Sir, we are not lucky enough to live in fools paradise. If doc tells me God forbid I have cancer (in early stages), I will go for treatment before its too late…
How many more?
Yet another incident of child abuse – this time in the government’s own territory
“Had I suspected it, I would never have sent him there,” said 80-year-old Mohammed Ajaib Khan. His orphaned grandson was sodomised by a madrassa teacher in Islamabad.
The eight-year-old boy whose family is settled in Murree, was enrolled in the madrassa about six months ago to memorise the Holy Quran. He was put in the madrassa’s hostel with 500 other students.
On the morning of September 23, the hostel warden informed the boy’s mother that her son was lying seriously ill in the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS). “He was so weak, pale and scared and did not speak a word for several hours,” the mother told TNS with tears in her eyes.
The FIR filed with the I-9 Police Station quoted the victim as saying that, about a month ago, one of his teachers sneaked into his room holding a dagger in his hand and forced him into another room where he sexually assaulted him. “When I tried to shout for help, he shut my mouth tightly with his hand and became more violent,” the victim told the police.
His suffering was compounded by the insensitivity of other teachers around him who knowingly ignored his pain and complaints. Not one official of the madrassa bothered to attend to him; instead, they threatened to kill him if he spoke out.
That encouraged the accused teacher to abuse the little boy twice again..
In a medical report issued at the time the boy was discharged from the hospital, Professor Zaheer Abbas mentioned the symptoms of acute abdominal pain and vomiting as a confirmation that he had been sexually abused.
During the investigation and interviews conducted with several students outside the seminary, it was found that he wasn’t the only one to have fallen a victim to the desires of the same teacher. And the madrassa officials were not totally ignorant about these cases.
“How could the poor victim protest? Nobody listens to us. The teachers and staff scare us,” a 13-year-old student said.
According to the principal of the seminary, the warden knew about the incident as the student had told him soon after it had taken place.** “But, under the pressure of the teacher, the child withdrew his complaint by saying it was ‘a bad dream’ that he had talked about earlier,” he said.**
“The accused quietly disappeared before his latest victim was admitted to the hospital,” a soft-spoken seminary official said.
The menace has existed in the society for long and there are some black sheep in religious seminaries as well who have been involved in such inhuman and unnatural activities," says Abdul Rashed Ghazi, an official at Islamabad’s Lal Masjid.
This is not an isolated incident at all. Most of the case are never reported. Still every now and then there is a story in news paper about sexual assault of children.
Lajawab You can afford to close your eyes, and say sab acha hai. But we have a disease. Untill we accept it, we can not go for a cure.
