PAKISTAN
Reuters
HUSAIN KHAN WALA, PAKISTAN | BY MEHREEN ZAHRA-MALIK AND MUBASHER BUKHARI
Parents at the center of a growing child abuse scandal in Pakistan accused police on Monday of failing to do enough to break up a pedophile ring in Punjab province, the prime minister’s political heartland.
Villagers in the central Punjabi village of Husain Khan Wala told Reuters that a prominent family there has for years forced children to perform sex acts on video. The footage was sold or used to blackmail their impoverished families.
Rubina Bibi says her 13-year-old son was a victim, but when she tried to file a report at the Ganda Singh Wala police station a month and a half ago, “the police station clerk told me to get lost and I was thrown out”.
“My son is in the videos, he is a victim,” she said. “Our children were forced into this. They were humiliated. But the police are treating them like criminals.”
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