Mental Health and Law in Pakistan

Physical punishment has long been used by parents, caregivers, and even teachers to discipline children. Though this harsh practice has diminished significantly in recent years, around half of the children in the world are victims of violence and a child dies every five minutes as a consequence of violence. This violence could include children being physically, sexually, or psychologically mistreated. The role of technology has been paramount in exposing children to abusive content, along with creating more avenues of violence, exploitation, and abuse for predators online (M’jid, 2020). There are approximately 300 million children between the ages of two and four who undergo violence regularly as a means of discipline by their caregivers (Kydd, 2022). The damaging effect of violence on children is long-lasting, which is why this writeup will explore the types of violence against children at home, the impact it has on children, as well as the internet being a further source of child violence.   The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has had a detrimental impact on children. The stay-at-home measures have been seen to have increased family violence, especially in houses that were violent pre-pandemic. Caregivers tended to have higher emotion reactivity due to poor mental health and increased unemployment or underemployment (Machlin et al, 2021). Unemployment because of the pandemic has increased the psychological maltreatment of children (Fore, 2021). Lower levels of happiness have also resulted in violence against children at home (Fabbri et al, 2021), as well as increased anxiety, depression, and alcohol consumption during lockdown (Loiseau et al, 2021). The prevalence of family violence and admission of children in hospitals for abuse-related injuries has grown exponentially since lockdown measures in 2020 due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic (Cappa and Jijon, 2021). France found a 50% increase in the frequency at which children (0 to 5 years old) were being hospitalized for physical abuse during lockdown measures in March and April 2020 (Loiseau et al, 2021). There has also been a reduction in reports to the police and child protective services since children were at home from school and away from teachers, who typically would notice the signs of abuse or neglect (Fore, 2021). Unfortunately, any injuries children suffer from are ruled out as accidents as violence in the form of corporal punishment is justified as a means of discipline (Kydd, 2022).

Corporal punishment is culturally accepted and pervasive in Pakistan, posing a huge threat to the country due to its high prevalence in schools and homes. A tradition protecting the use of corporal punishment in Pakistan includes adults possessing the authority to teach children through force, cruelly punishing them for not listening or learning. Adults interacting with children should be educated on violence (or the possibility of it) acting as a deterrent only in the presence of the threat. Violence as a means of discipline has no effect on self-regulating behavior in the absence of adults. Many children internalize the violence they experience as a means of discipline at home and find it difficult to learn when positive means of discipline are enforced (Ansari, 2022). Pakistan has one of the highest dropout rates, with around 22.8 million students dropping out of school every year. The high acceptance and prevalence of corporal punishment exercised in schools could play a role in the high dropout rates, as it instills fear of learning and attending school. Children who drop out of school tend to become street children, making them more susceptible to child labor (working in low-quality restaurants or mechanic shops) and radicalism (being exploited by terrorist organizations) (Abid, 2021). An atrocity that resulted in Pakistan’s lack of laws protecting children from violence is the case of a 19-year-old student who died after being horrifically beaten by a teacher for not memorizing his lesson (Sahoutara, 2019). Another horrifying case of an 8-year-old being illegally employed as a maid and killed by her employers for letting their parrots fly away further sheds light on the dire need for laws protecting children in Pakistan (Saifi, 2020). 

Child abuse (physical, psychological, and sexual violence) among child laborers is rampant in Pakistan. There are currently roughly over 20 million child laborers in Pakistan, with children often working 20 hours a day seven days a week and being deprived of most human rights (GHRD, 2021). Research done on child laborers in found that 19.1% experience emotional abuse, 19.1% experience physical abuse, and 8.5% experience sexual abuse. Physical violence tends to be higher among boys and sexual violence was seen to be the highest among agricultural workers (Iqbal et al, 2021). Children are employed across the country due to them being cheaper to employ than adults as well as being easier to control and exploit. Poor parents tend to offer their children up for employment as it promises food and shelter which they are unable to provide. Employers tend to evade any accountability through ‘hush money’ if a child laborer dies in their care. An example of this is a 13-year-old girl working as a maid who was thrown out of a window by her employers and the employers were never tried as they agreed to pay 300,000 Pakistani rupees as a settlement (Khan, 2019). Incidents such as these will continue if the physical and mental torture of children remains legal, caregivers and teachers are not informed on the physical and psychological effects of it, and if there is no accountability of people perpetrating violence (Sahoutara, 2019). This can be done through public campaigns and specialized training programs, making violence as a form of discipline culturally unacceptable (Ansari, 2022). 

Children who suffer from violence tend to deal with many mental and behavioral issues. Childhood violence tends to trigger aggressive behavior in children and adolescents. Other adverse effects of corporal punishments (such as hitting a child with objects, spanking them, or slapping them) on child development include low self-control, negative emotions, and endorsement of violence (Liu et al, 2021). Corporal punishment inflicted by parents has been linked to children’s problem behaviors (Fu et al, 2019). Research also indicates that children have lower attachment security towards parents if they are used to coercive discipline practices (such as corporal punishment), which then has adverse effects on the child’s development of emotional security. The parental acceptance-rejection theory states that a child’s need of acceptance is not met if the parents are using corporal punishment to discipline their children. The punishment is viewed as the parent’s withdraw of love and rejection, compromising the child’s self-esteem, emotional stability, mental representations about interpersonal relationships, and self-adequacy. All of these factors then contribute to higher anxiety levels in children who experience corporal punishment (Liu and Wang, 2020). Children also tend to externalize problems when they experience violence (for example hitting) for any wrong behavior. This results in current and lifetime aggressive behavior, conduct issues, and even hyperactivity. Longitudinal research has also shed light on the increase of aggression and antisocial or delinquent behavior for adolescents and adults caused by exposure to corporal punishment (Hecker et al, 2014). 

Child abuse not only has deleterious short-term effects but can influence the trajectory of a child’s life. Children who undergo physical, emotional, or sexual violence tend to suffer from poor mental health, along with having worse social skills, emotional skills, and self-efficacy. These children are also more likely to have lower school attendances, increased dropout rates, as well as diminished reading ability (Smiley et al, 2021). Corporal punishment has been heavily criticized in society after the myriad of research done on this topic has highlighted the pernicious effects it has on child development and growth. There is evidence to prove that corporal punishment inflicted by caregivers can hinder the formation of a child’s social-emotional skills (Cuartas, 2021). Exposure to violence at home can further distort the development of a child’s social-cognitive processing, resulting in a hostile social perception in adolescents. The more exposure a child has to violence at home, the more anger they have which is indicative of poor emotion regulation. This leads to children or adolescents having aggressive responses to provocations (to parents as well as others) and are more likely to justify the need for violence as well due to the normalization of the use of violence from their homes (Contreras et al, 2020). 

The normalization or minimization of violence as an agent of discipline by society can affect the tolerance and acceptance of violence against children. Developmental violence, which includes malnutrition, along with a lack of love, care, and play is more tolerated by society than it should be (Kydd, 2022). The normalization of violence at home can distort positive coping mechanisms, which then leads to emotion dysregulation and children adopting substance misuse tendencies to cope with the abuse (Paterson-Young, 2021). This can also develop positive attitudes in children towards the administering of violence in general and for disciplinary reasons (Ssenyonga et al, 2019). It is for this reason that violence against children should be at the forefront of policymakers’ agendas. There has been a multitude of evidence suggesting methods and interventions that can help reduce violence against children, specifically at home. Parenting interventions have been proven to reduce harsh and abusive parenting, and even improve positive interactions between parents and their children (McCoy et al, 2020). Refining parenting skills as well as ameliorating caregiver mental health (such as illnesses like anxiety and depression) can reduce violence perpetrated on children. Other factors include caregivers avoiding alcohol and drug consumption along with an improvement of economic welfare in the family, which have been seen to mitigate the issue of violence against children (Cluver et al, 2020). 

Another insidious consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic is the exponential increase of violent and abusive content available to children online. This increases the risks of children being sexually exploited due to the proliferation of pornographic content online (Fore, 2021). Internet use among children has risen and has increased their exposure to child sexual abuse images and messages, as well as sexual and non-sexual harassment online (Kardefelt-Winther and Maternowska, 2020). The internet allows people to remain anonymous, which creates an environment that favors adults who set out to manipulate, exploit, and abuse children. Online platforms are then used as gateways to committing offline sex offenses (Shannon, 2008). Child predators on the internet, specifically those who groom children, are mostly males who target female adolescents (Winters et al, 2016) and also children who are socially alienated or have been previously sexually abused, as that makes them an easy target to re-victimize (Craven, 2007). While many sexual offenses take place online, there is a chance of them turning into offline offenses as well. The line between online and offline boundaries are blurred, making it easy for predators to meet their victims in person (McCartan and McAlister, 2012).

There are three types of grooming tactics that predators can exhibit. Self-grooming is one tactic that describes the process of the perpetrator justifying or being in a state of denial about their offending behavior and thus targeting and abusing children. Another tactic includes grooming the child’s environment and significant others, which entails the perpetrator insinuating themselves in spaces where they have easy access to children and putting on the façade for caregivers of a trusted individual. The third technique is grooming the child, which involves perpetrators interacting with children on their level so as to make the child relate to them. This process involves physical and psychological grooming (Craven et al, 2007). Sexual grooming is a growing cause for concern with the increasing presence of children on social media and sexual interests in children can be shifted to sexual interest in adults by exposing existing or potential perpetrators to adult stimuli. Research done on the topic indicates that the treatment for people who commit crimes of a sexual nature against minors includes identifying cognitive distortions, offenders improving self-regulation deficits, as well as ameliorating their social skills to allow them to establish healthy interpersonal relationships with consenting adults (Ly et al, 2016).

Violence against children is a huge problem in the world today. This includes the physical violence children experience at home, as well as the violence that they may face as a result of dangerous interactions with predators they may have through the internet. There is a plethora of evidence that proves that violence against children not only has detrimental short-term effects, but affects their development and growth which then leads to a lifetime of potential behavioral and mental health issues. It is for this reason that policy makers should implement parenting interventions, as those have been seen to be the most effective at preventing violence against children. Parents also need to have open conversations with their children about internet-safety and teach them skills to identify the signs of grooming and manipulation so as to protect their children from any harm.

References:

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