Pakistan

Real lives

School that stops child abuse in Pakistan

RAWALPINDI, 27-1-2003 (UNICEF)

It's the height of the monsoon season and the narrow back alleys of Rawalpindi's Pirwhadai area are slippery with mud as water oozes under piles of rotting rubbish. House number 087 looks ordinary enough from the outside but as you approach, the sounds of children's talk and laughter can be heard.

Inside, the house is a hive of activity. Two of the ground floor rooms have been turned into classrooms for third- and fifth-grade students. A third room is being used for early childhood education with pre-school children playing happily together.

A small woman steps forward. "Hello, I'm Mussarai Sherwani," she says. "Welcome to our Community Model School." A dynamic older woman, Ms. Sherwani, is the head teacher and is responsible for the community-led rehabilitation programme for working children, which operates in three Rawalpindi schools.

Despite the school being in an urban slum, the children are polite, well dressed and studying hard. They all have one thing in common: they are all working children, and most of them have, at one time or another, faced sexual or physical abuse.

Ms. Sherwani is proud of the strong social protection element of the programme and is available to counsel teachers and students, as required, each day. There are also regular workshops on abuse and related issues for parents and employers, as well as regular mothers' group meetings on income-generation activities so that children need not be forced to work. The mothers from areas where women are forced to stay at home learn sewing, paper-making, candle-making and how to bottle jam. Where women have more freedom, they are encouraged to develop office-based skills or to run small vegetable gardens.

The issue of child sexual abuse is not often publicly discussed in families or communities in Pakistan, yet Mussarai Sherwani is unusual in that she speaks openly about the problem and how to overcome it.

"Some teachers refused to stay in the school," she says, "because they were embarrassed to talk about body parts or HIV/AIDS. Some days we have children in here who cannot sit down, they have been so badly physically or sexually abused. Unless we speak about these issues in a way that everybody knows and understands, we shall never be able to protect these children and young people."

There are a total of 150 trained teacher-counsellors in the community schools project. One trained teacher covers several community schools where they can interact sensitively with abused children, as well as with their parents and employers to suggest alternative life choices to protect them from harm. The information collected from teachers is helping fill the gaps in information on these sensitive topics.

The next challenge is to make children, parents and communities aware that such violations do occur and how they may be prevented as well as ensuring that the warning signs are detected early on to help the recovery and reintegration of the child. In addition, UNICEF supports the training and development of the curriculum and also provides books and educational supplies for the schools. Support is also given to Afghan working refugee children in Peshawar and Quetta.

At the suggestion of Ms. Sherwani, the local community education committee convenes workshops where parents and employers learn about the issue and what they need to do to stop it. "Of course, the employers denied that there was any abuse going on," she says, "but we noticed that there was some improvement in the situation after the workshops."

Ms. Sherwani introduces me to 13-year-old Ahmed, whom she describes as "one of my success stories." Ahmed lives in a small house with five brothers, three sisters, his unemployed parents and his grandfather. He and his elder brother are shoemakers while his father finds occasional work in a local vegetable market. Together they support the whole family.

"When the family came here to Rawalpindi," says Ahmed, "I had to find work in the vegetable market to help support them. I had never been to school. I had no manners and I treated my parents badly." Then a social worker who came to his workplace told him about the Community Model School where he could study for three hours a day but also continue to work to support his family.

While there, he met Mussarai Sherwani who quickly realized that Ahmed was being sexually abused at his work. Ahmed himself chooses his words carefully. "The market owner used to tease me," he says. "He kept touching me on my hands and body, so how could I know what was right?" But after meeting the counsellor at the community school, he had no further doubts. "The market owner asked me one day to take off my clothes," he says, matter-of-factly. "I told him to leave me alone. I knew he was a bad person and I left the job."

I asked Ahmed if he was able to talk to his family about the problems he faced. His reply was swift. "I cannot speak to them about this (abuse), even though they know what is going on. If I tell them they will beat me first, then my father and uncle will go after my employer with a gun. I am afraid of blood and my father becomes angry very quickly." Then he adds, "But coming to this school, I have confidence and I am not afraid any more."

Ahmed now works with his older brother in a little one-room workshop making women's shoes. "We must work long hours," he says, "because two of us have to feed 12 people. I used to be afraid but now I feel safe walking in the dark."

Mussarai Sherwani is pleased that with the support of UNICEF and its partners, they are able to protect Ahmed and other children from abuse. "The word has gone around the community," she says. "Now we have these children bringing in other children who need protection, so I know we are successful."