‘Battered and broken’: Rizwana’s wounds cast light on child labor in Pakistan

The undated blurred photo shows child abuse victim Rizwana undergoing treatment at Lahore’s General Hospital. (Photo courtesy: social media)
Short Url
Updated 16 August 2023
Follow

‘Battered and broken’: Rizwana’s wounds cast light on child labor in Pakistan

  • Wife of civil judge arrested over accusations she tortured 14-year-old maid in case that has unleashed widespread calls for justice
  • Rizwana is admitted at Lahore’s General Hospital with sepsis, broken bones and wounds all over her body, needs multiple surgeries

LAHORE: Fourteen-year-old Rizwana was brought to a hospital in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on July 24 with multiple head injuries, open wounds and broken bones across her body, and sepsis, a deadly immune response triggered by infection. She was unable to breathe on her own, or eat and speak.

Her family says the girl's condition was the culmination of six months of abuse and torture she was subjected to at the home of a civil judge in Islamabad where she worked as a maid, earning Rs10,000 ($34) a month. The case, for weeks the subject of outraged news headlines, has put the spotlight on Pakistan’s child labor and trafficking practices, often considered symptoms of poverty, with desperately poor families selling their children for work.

Child labor was banned in Pakistan in 2020 and it is illegal for children to work in factories and other industries. However, there are still about 12 million child workers in the country, according to the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC). Many come from Pakistan’s poorest regions, either through middlemen, shadowy job placement agencies or by kidnapping, and work as domestic staff in private homes where monitoring working conditions or detecting abuse is difficult for authorities. Public attitudes towards child labor are also usually permissive in a society where even in the lowest rungs of the middle class, families often have at least one live-in servant.

But Rizwana’s case has captured the public imagination and unleashed widespread cries for justice. The main suspect, Somia Asism, the wife of civil judge Asim Hafeez, was arrested this week after initially getting bail.

Rizwana, meanwhile, was shifted from the ICU to a private ward on August 8, her ordeal far from over.

“This was the first time I started to believe that the likes of us can get justice as well,” Rizwana’s mother, Shameem Bibi, told Arab News at the Lahore General Hospital. “The poor are not human at all. Nobody treats us like human beings.”

Bibi, who has nine other children and whose husband is a daily wage laborer, said Asim had contacted her multiple times since the police complaint was registered, offering huge sums of money to drop the charges. 

Lawyers for Asim, who has pleaded innocence, could not be reached for comment despite several attempts. 

“She said, ‘You are never going to win even if you keep going [to courts] for the next twenty years, so take the money’,” Bibi said. “But I didn’t want money, I want justice for my daughter.”

The horrors Rizwana recalls are unspeakable, including being starved for five days in a row and her head being repeatedly beaten against the floor, apparently as punishment for behaviour that displeased her employers.

The mother said when she first saw Rizwana in Islamabad at the bus stop where Asim had come to hand her back to her family, she was missing teeth and her head was bandaged. Her face, covered in wounds and smashed in, was “difficult even to look at,” Bibi said.

At the time, the family did not know that an infection was slowly spreading through the girl's body because of untreated wounds all over her body.

“PROLONGED TORTURE”

A 12-member medical board led by Dr. Jodat Saleem, a renowned professor of anesthesia, ICU and pain management, was constituted last month to devise a treatment and recovery plan for Rizwana at Lahore’s General Hospital, with two plastic surgeons recently added to help with reconstructive surgery.

“There are signs of prolonged periods of torture, old wounds that were never allowed to heal,” Dr Saleem told Arab News, saying the child was subjected to “forced malnutrition” because of which her body stopped producing white blood cells and platelets, severely weakening her immune system.

Weeks-old fractures on her arms, legs and nasal bone and a wound on her back, among various other injuries, had nor been treated, leading to the development of an infection that spread to the child’s lungs and heart.

“The heart is better, but the lung problem continues, which is why we will need intermittent oxygen support,” Dr Saleem said.

A nasal bone fracture, a skull fracture, and torn lips also needed intervention:

“We had to close the wounds on her face first … Today [Wednesday] we are going to clean the head and back wounds, and she will undergo a second surgery.”

The “parameters of infection” were improving, the professor added, but Rizwana would likely need six reconstructive surgeries. Her immunity, he said, was “extremely compromised,” which made it very difficult to provide a timeline for her recovery process.

Lahore-based lawyer Faisal Jatt, who is representing Rizwana’s family, said CCTV footage of Asim putting the girl in her car to drive her to a bus station in Islamabad as well as of Rizwana waiting for her mother at the station on July 23, clearly showed her trauma.

“You can clearly see the bandages, signs of injuries, the child was unable to walk to the bus, the bus driver had to carry her in,” Jatt said.

Rizwana’s father Manga Khan said she was “battered and broken” when the family picked her up from the bus station.

“Her legs and arms were broken, her head was damaged, the skin on her head was torn,” he said. 

The girl’s face had been covered with a cloth when the car dropped her off.

“When my wife removed the cloth and saw [her face], it was in a bad state.”

“NOT RARE”

Rizwana’s case, however harrowing, is hardly unique.

The brutal death of eight-year-old maid Zohra Shah in 2020 also caused outrage in Pakistan, prompting the government to change legislation governing child labor and ban the practice. In another case, a 10-year-old maid was tortured by her employers, a judge and his wife, in 2016 in a much-publicized case that saw the judge barred from legal practice. The three-year jail term imposed on him and his wife was later reduced to one year, however.

Perhaps the most publicized case of child labor in Pakistan was Iqbal Masih, sold by his parents at age 4 and shackled to a carpet loom for almost six years, earning one rupee a day. When Masih escaped, he owed his boss 13,000 rupees and went on to win international acclaim for highlighting the horrors of child labor in Pakistan. He was shot dead when he was 12 after receiving several death threats from people in the carpet industry angered by his comments about child labor.

Doctors and social workers said they hoped Rizwana would have a better future.

“We are making a long-term rehabilitation plan for her,” Dr Al Fareed Zafar, another senior doctor treating Rizwana, told reporters this week. “We need to give her education, teach her some skills so that she can go on and live her own life, a better life.”

Ehtsham Arshad, an officer with Punjab’s Child Protection and Welfare Bureau which has legal custody of Rizwana until she is discharged from hospital, said she would have to undergo trauma counseling and therapy. The plan was to move her to a district office in Faisalabad for mental and physical rehabilitation, then to Sargodha, her hometown, where the government would pay for her education.

The Bureau has rescued 78,753 children from abuse, exploitation, and being driven to the streets without a legal guardian since it was established in 2005.

“Each month we see around 200-300 children in need of rescue in Lahore alone, half of these cases involve child labor abuse,” Arshad said. “This [Rizwana's] is a very publicized but unfortunately not a rare case of violence against child laborers.”

Still, the girl's mother is adamant she will get justice for her daughter.

“God is with the poor,” Bibi said. “My god Inshallah will help me. She [Asim] will be punished.”


Ex-PM Imran Khan party says wife, key aide not under arrest as Pakistan launches ‘operation’

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

Ex-PM Imran Khan party says wife, key aide not under arrest as Pakistan launches ‘operation’

  • Local media widely reported vehicles carrying Bushra Khan and Gandapur left Islamabad and entered Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
  • Interior minister says PM has ruled out talks with protesters demanding ex-PM Imran Khan’s release, six including four troops killed

ISLAMABAD: A spokesperson for jailed ex-premier Imran Khan said on Tuesday Bushra Khan, the former PM’s wife, and key party leader Ali Amin Gandapur, who were leading demonstrations in Islamabad to demand Khan’s release, had left a protest caravan but were safe amid widespread media reports they had been arrested.

At least six people, including four paramilitary soldiers and two protesters, were killed during clashes between security forces and protesters who made it on Monday night to the edge of Islamabad’s highly fortified red zone, home to key government and diplomatic buildings, before being pushed back by hundreds of security forces, according to Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party. 

“We are trying to secure Bushra Bibi and Ali Amin for the next few hours because we have credible sources that the law enforcement plans to arrest them with a heavy hand,” Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari, a spokesman for the PTI party told Arab News when asked if Bushra and Gandapur had left the protest caravan. He confirmed they had not been arrested. 

Bukhari declined to disclose where the two protest leaders were but confirmed that their protest caravan, which was nearing the D-Chowk public square in the red zone, had been pushed further back to the capital’s Chongi 26 area by “hundreds” of security officials. 

Two security officials, declining to be named, told Arab News an “operation” had been launched against the PTI protest, declining further details.

Pakistani local media widely reported that police chased cars carrying Bushra and Gandapur, but their vehicles entered Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a northwestern province where PTI is in power and where the federal government does not have jurisdiction. 

Supporters of Khan’s PTI on Tuesday reached D-Chowk for a “do or die” sit-in that they say will go on until Khan is freed from prison. 

The former premier has been jailed since August last year and faces a slew of charges from corruption to terrorism that he says are politically motivated to keep him behind bars and away from politics. 

Speaking to reporters, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi ruled out talks with protesters. 

“In today’s meeting, the clear-cut decision of the prime minister and others is that there will be no talks with these protesters,” Naqvi said after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met his cabinet and other top officials on Tuesday evening. 

Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said the government had agreed to offer the protesters space on the outskirts of Islamabad to hold their protest and would have facilitated them in their activities. 

“But why do they want to go to D-Chowk?” the information minister asked. “Because they want to cause damage to the life and property of Islamabad’s citizens. They have among them Afghan nationals, terrorists, dacoits.” 

In a message shared with supporters from jail by his team, Khan, 72, urged his followers to stay peaceful but to stand firm till the end. 

“My message for my team is to fight until the last ball is bowled. We will not back down until our demands are met!”

LOCKDOWN

As thousands of rally goers left for Islamabad on Sunday in protest caravans, authorities shut down major highways leading to the capital and used shipping containers to block major roads and streets inside the city. Mobile Internet links and apps like WhatsApp have been down since the weekend and schools have been closed for several days in the capital and the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi. 

Last week, the district administration also banned public gatherings in Islamabad for two months, and on Monday, the interior ministry invoked Article 245, calling in the army to maintain law and order. 

On Tuesday afternoon, protest leader Ali Amin Gandapur urged protesters to camp at the D-Chowk square and not advance further into the red zone. 

“D-Chowk means D-Chowk,” the chief minister told supporters from atop a truck en route to the public square. “Beyond that, as long as Imran Khan’s orders, Imran Khan’s instructions are not given, we will not go beyond that area and we will respect his instructions.”

Amnesty International called on the Pakistan government to protect and ensure the rights of protesters and “immediately rescind the ‘shoot-on-sight’ orders that provide undue and excessive powers to the military.”

“The severe restrictions on assembly, movement and mobile and Internet services as well as arbitrary detentions of thousands of protesters across Pakistan, particularly in Islamabad, are a grave violation of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, movement and expression,” the rights group said on X.


Pakistan urges World Bank support on economic reforms, development agenda

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

Pakistan urges World Bank support on economic reforms, development agenda

  • IMF approved a $7 billion bailout loan for Pakistan in September that comes with a tough economic reforms agenda
  • IMF is pushing Pakistan to continue prudent fiscal and monetary policies, mobilize revenue from untapped tax bases

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb met World Bank Country Director Najy Benhassine on Tuesday and urged the international lender to support Pakistan in its economic reforms and development agenda, Radio Pakistan reported. 

The talks in Islamabad came less than two months after the IMF approved a $7 billion bailout loan for Pakistan that is attached to tough economic reforms. The IMF is pushing Pakistan to continue prudent fiscal and monetary policies, and to mobilize revenue from untapped tax bases.

Pakistan’s $350 billion economy has struggled for decades with boom-and-bust cycles, needing 23 IMF bailouts since 1958.

“During the meeting, the Finance Minister highlighted the importance of collaboration with the World Bank to support Pakistan’s economic reforms and development agenda,” Radio Pakistan reported. “The Finance Minister reiterated the government’s commitment to fiscal discipline, sustainable growth, and efficient resource utilization.”

The discussions focused on the establishment of a robust and transparent tax policy framework to enhance revenue mobilization and improve compliance while ensuring equitable taxation, the report said. 

The World Bank team also offered technical assistance to streamline the budget-making process, adopt modern practices to improve transparency and accountability in public financial management, and put in place an effective debt management mechanism to ensure fiscal sustainability and reduce risks.

Issues related to the Agricultural Income Tax Regime and GST harmonization in coordination with provinces and an enhanced focus on the active role of the National Tax Council also came under discussion.

“The Finance Minister expressed gratitude for the World Bank’s support and reaffirmed the government’s resolve to implement reforms aimed at sustainable economic progress,” the reported said, adding that the World Bank officials reiterated the lender’s commitment to assisting Pakistan in addressing economic challenges and achieving its developmental objectives.

The IMF, which approved the new bailout in September, has said the program will require “sound policies and reforms” to strengthen macroeconomic stability and address structural challenges alongside “continued strong financial support from Pakistan’s development and bilateral partners.”

The IMF said in its statement on approving the loan that Pakistan had taken key steps to restore economic stability with consistent policy implementation under the 2023-24 standby arrangement.

It added that growth had rebounded to 2.4 percent and inflation has receded significantly, falling to single digits, amid appropriately tight fiscal and monetary policies.

A contained current account and calm foreign exchange market conditions have allowed the rebuilding of reserve buffers, and the central bank of Pakistan has been able to reduce interest rates by 700 bps since June in four consecutive cuts.

Despite this progress, Pakistan’s vulnerabilities and structural challenges remain formidable and the tax base remains too narrow.

The South Asian country is the IMF’s fifth-largest debtor, owing the Fund $6.28 billion as of July 11, according to the lender’s data.


Islamabad district commissioner denies reports of fuel shortages amid opposition protest

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

Islamabad district commissioner denies reports of fuel shortages amid opposition protest

  • Major roads and highways leading to the capital have been sealed off since last week when PTI party launched protest march on Sunday
  • Oil Tanker Contractors Association says closed routes had stalled the delivery of petrol to several parts of Punjab province and Islamabad

KARACHI: The Deputy Commissioner of Islamabad on Tuesday rejected reports of fuel shortages after an oil tankers association said the supply of petrol to the federal capital and several cities in Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province had been “severely affected” due to a protest march being led by an opposition party.

Major roads and highways leading to the capital have been sealed off since last week when the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party of jailed former premier Imran Khan launched a protest ‘long march’ to Islamabad on Sunday. The city has been in complete lockdown since, with shipping containers used to block major roads and streets inside Islamabad also. 

“Reports of petroleum products crisis in the city are baseless and unfounded,” District Magistrate Irfan Nawaz Memon wrote on X. “There is a sufficient stock of petroleum products at petrol pumps.”

In a statement released on Tuesday, the Oil Tanker Contractors Association had said closed routes had stalled the delivery of petrol to several parts of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, and Islamabad. 

“Routes to Islamabad, Rawalpindi and North Punjab are closed due to which supply from petrol tankers is severely affected,” association spokesperson Noman But said in a statement. “Thousands of tankers are waiting for the route to open.”

Butt said petrol had not been supplied to Gujranwala, Jhelum, Sialkot and Kharian districts in Punjab for the last three days, while supply to Islamabad, Kohala and the northern city of Gilgit was also affected. 

“Petrol has run out at pumps in many cities,” he added.

Khan’s party aims to pressure the government to release him from jail. He has been in prison since August 2023 on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated. The party is also protesting against what it says was rigging in the Feb. 8 general elections and calling on the government to roll back the recently passed 26th constitutional amendment, which the PTI says is an attack of judicial independence. The government denies this. 

PTI supporters broke through barricades and clashed with police as they marched on the capital late on Monday evening, with Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi saying three paramilitary troops and one policeman had been killed in clashes.

The PTI said in a statement two of its supporters were confirmed dead while over 30 were wounded. 


Pakistan rules out talks with protesters demanding ex-PM Khan’s release, six killed

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

Pakistan rules out talks with protesters demanding ex-PM Khan’s release, six killed

  • Topping demands of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party is release of all its leaders, including Khan
  • Interior ministry says four troops killed in clashes with protesters, PTI says two supporters dead

ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Tuesday ruled out talks with protesters who are holding a sit-in in Islamabad to demand the release of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan after four security officials and two demonstrators were killed in clashes. 

Hundreds of supporters of Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday reached the D-Chowk public square in Islamabad’s heavily fortified red zone, home to parliament, key government installations, luxury hotels, embassies and the offices of foreign organizations. Protest leaders, including Khan’s wife Bushra Khan and Ali Amin Gandapur, who is the chief minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the PTI is in power, have said this is a “do or die” sit-in that will go on until Khan is freed from prison. The former premier has been jailed since August last year and faces a slew of charges from corruption to terrorism that he says are politically motivated to keep him behind bars and away from politics. 

PTI supporters broke through barricades and clashed with police as they marched on the capital late on Monday evening, with Interior Minister Naqvi saying three paramilitary troops and one policeman had been killed in clashes. The PTI said in a statement two of its supporters were confirmed dead while over 30 were wounded, the worst political violence seen in months in the South Asian nation of 241 million people.

“In today’s meeting, the clear cut decision of the prime minister and others is that there will be no talks with these protesters,” Naqvi said after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif met his cabinet and other top officials. 

Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said the government had agreed to offer the protesters a place on the outskirts of Islamabad to hold their protest and would have facilitated them in their activities. 

“But why do they want to go to D-Chowk?” the information minister asked. “Because they want to cause damage to the life and property of Islamabad’s citizens. They have among them Afghan nationals, terrorists, dacoits.” 

In a message shared with supporters from jail by his team, Khan, 72, urged his followers to stay peaceful but to stand firm till the end. 

“My message for my team is to fight until the last ball is bowled. We will not back down until our demands are met!”

LOCKDOWN

As thousands of rally goers left for Islamabad on Sunday in protest caravans, authorities shut down major highways leading to the capital and used shipping containers to block major roads and streets inside the city. Mobile Internet links and apps like WhatsApp have been down since the weekend and schools have been closed for several days in the capital and the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi. 

Last week, the district administration also banned public gatherings in Islamabad for two months, and on Monday, the interior ministry invoked Article 245, calling in the army to maintain law and order. 

A round of the federal capital by Arab News on Tuesday afternoon showed that all entry and exit points of the city had been sealed again with shipping containers shortly after protesters removed them to enter the city. The Srinagar Highway, the main artery connecting the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, was littered with stones that protesters had reportedly hurled at security personnel on their way to D-Chowk. 

Local residents of Rawalpindi and Islamabad could be seen distributing food and water among protesters on the Srinagar Highway while helicopters hovered above. 

Protest leader Ali Amin Gandapur, whose caravan had still not reached D-Chowk by Tuesday evening, urged protesters to camp at the square and not advance further into the red zone. 

“D-Chowk means D-Chowk,” the chief minister told supporters from atop a truck en route to the public square. “Beyond that, as long as Imran Khan’s orders, Imran Khan’s instructions are not given, we will not go beyond that area and we will respect his instructions.”

 

 

Amnesty International called on the Pakistan government to protect and ensure the rights of protesters and “immediately rescind the ‘shoot-on-sight’ orders that provide undue and excessive powers to the military.”

“The severe restrictions on assembly, movement and mobile and Internet services as well as arbitrary detentions of thousands of protesters across Pakistan, particularly in Islamabad, are a grave violation of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly, movement and expression,” the rights group said on X.


Pakistani conglomerate Descon announces local incorporation in Saudi Arabia

Updated 26 November 2024
Follow

Pakistani conglomerate Descon announces local incorporation in Saudi Arabia

  • Pakistan’s Descon Engineering operates in the engineering, power and chemical sectors
  • It has a long-standing strategic partnership with the Olayan Saudi Holding Company 

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Descon Engineering, which operates in the engineering, power and chemical sectors, on Tuesday announced the incorporation of Descon Engineering Arabia, a registered entity in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in partnership with its long-standing strategic partner, Olayan Saudi Holding Company (OSHCO.)

OSHCO is a Saudi-based diversified business enterprise with commercial and industrial operations spread across Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East and North Africa regions. The company’s portfolio includes more than 25 companies operating in five sectors, namely, food and beverages, restaurants, health and personal care, information and communications technology (ICT), and energy.

Descon, a group of companies headquartered in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, is active in UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Iraq, and South Africa.

“This significant development reaffirms Descon’s continued commitment to the Kingdom and highlights its focus on localization within Saudi Arabia,” Descon said in a statement. 

“Through Descon Engineering Arabia, the company is further expanding its regional footprint, reinforcing its position as a trusted and established service provider dedicated to meeting the needs of customers across the Kingdom.”

The company said the “new chapter” had strengthened its resolve to make a broader global impact, ensuring enhanced value delivery to clients in Saudi Arabia, while supporting the development of local talent and capacity building.

“As we establish Descon Engineering Arabia in partnership with OSHCO, we reaffirm our commitment to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its vision for sustainable growth. This step represents a deepening of our long-standing relationship with the region, enabling us to deliver tailored solutions while contributing to local talent development and capacity building,” Taimur Saeed, CEO of Descon Engineering, said. 

“We look forward to fostering stronger collaborations and continuing to serve the Kingdom with the reliability and expertise that have defined our journey for nearly five decades.”

Through Descon Engineering Arabia, Descon Engineering is positioned to deliver even greater value, continuing its “dedication to excellence and local growth” for customers in Saudi Arabia and the region, the company added.