SEXUAL ABUSE AND EXPLOITATION OF BOYS IN SOUTH ASIA A ...

children (Nigehban) in divisional headquarters as of 2007. These centres receive cases and
provide protection for children living on the street, trafficked children and children without
parental care. Staff at the centres try to trace families and reunite them. If the parents cannot
be found the children are referred to child care institutions or orphanages. Similarly, eight
welfare homes have been established by the NWFP provincial government for homeless,
destitute and runaway children, as well as children living or working on the street. These
centres provide safe shelter and rehabilitation, referral and reintegration services. 373 The
majority of drop-in centres are focused on boys, given that few girls leave the family home.
Madadgaar is a protection services centre for children and women in Karachi, established by
LHRLA in collaboration with UNICEF. The centre provides crisis intervention services for
children and women, including legal aid, referral to service providers and counselling and
psychotherapy for victims by trained clinical psychologists. SACH, in Islamabad, also
provides shelter to children who have endured physical and sexual violence. The group’s
community-based programme targets children who are refugees or who have left home.
In 2005, Save the Children Sweden established a child protection committee at a hospital in
Lahore as part of a pilot to develop a model of multidisciplinary management of child abuse
and exploitation cases. The programme provides services to victims of physical, sexual and
psychological violence and referral to legal support. It has provided training at other health
facilities in the province, and its approach was replicated in five other major hospitals in
Pakistan in 2006. More than 250 health professionals have been trained in identifying and
managing abuse cases. 374
7.4.8.3 Psychosocial care
Psychological counselling services for boy victims of sexual abuse and exploitation have
improved in Pakistan in recent years, although the number of counselling practitioners
remains insufficient. The common wisdom is that boys are less likely than girls to suffer
psychological and physical damage from sexual exploitation and are better able to ‘heal’
themselves, so their needs for rehabilitative services have not been considered as
important. 375
The National Commission for Child Welfare and Development established a core group on
commercial sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children to help NGOs and other
stakeholders respond to these issues. The group developed a manual on psychosocial recovery
and rehabilitation with the assistance of Rozan and UNICEF. It has since been used by
several NGOs to train professionals in medical and psychological response. 376
373 National Commission for Child Welfare and Development, 2007, ‘Pakistan’s consolidated third and fourth
periodic report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’.
374 National Commission for Child Welfare and Development, 2007, ‘Pakistan’s consolidated third and fourth
periodic report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’.
375 Save the Children Sweden-Denmark (Slugget, C.), 2003, ‘Mapping of psychosocial support for girls and boys
affected by child sexual abuse in four countries in South and Central Asia’.
376 National Commission for Child Welfare and Development. 2007, op.cit.
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