A new documentary, Pakistan’s Hidden Shame, attempts to bring public attention the issue. The documentary reveals the horrors of pedophilia and was recently aired on Channel 4 in UK.
Mohammad Ali Naqvi, the director of the documentary, is an internationally-celebrated filmmaker with over 25 prestigious awards and honors.
Naqvi said that Pakistan was a party to the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of a Child and arguably had a concrete legal framework for the protection of children rights. Despite this the country astoundingly had an upwards 1.5 million children living on the streets, of which an estimated 90% have been sexually abused.
“The Pakistani state has failed in implementing laws to protect these children and has demonstrated a profound apathy,” he said.
Naqvi takes a step forth towards highlighting the dreadfulness of pedophilia as he interviews Naeem, a 13-year-old runaway kid and veteran of the streets of Peshawar, as one of the key subjects of his documentary.
“Naeem told us of an experience in which he was gang raped,” Naqvi added, saying that when his elder brother found out that Naeem had been the victim of a sex crime, he responded by saying that it was his own sin and had he known about this earlier, he would have burnt him alive. “We are honourable people,” Naeem’s brother commented.
Naqvi believes that this attitude, in varying degrees of intensity, permeates through parts of our society. The abused are further victimised and held responsible, all for the sake of some antiquated concept of tribal honour.
