Reporting child abuse

These days it has become very common with the newspapers, English, Urdu and Sindhi, to publish the identity of children, either victims or offenders, for the sake of becoming popular. These do not give due consideration to the children's rights to privacy, dignity and protection as well as to the law that prohibits them from such an act.

According to Section 8 of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000, no newspaper or magazine in any form will disclose the name or identification of the child. Also Section 23 of the Sindh Children Act 1955 prohibits the same. It says, "No report in any newspaper, magazine or news-sheet of any case or proceeding in any court under this Act in which a child is involved shall disclose the name, address or school or include any particulars calculated to lead directly or indirectly to the identification of any such child, nor shall any picture be published as being or including a picture of any child".

In the reporting of children's issues, particularly when these are victim or a rape survivor, media outlets have to adopt ethics and avoid publishing the identification (name, photograph) of the children but unfortunately such media ethics have died due to a phenomenal advancement in technology and increasing competition among the media companies.

Publishing details of a rape survivor (child) violates the child's right to privacy, and could be seriously negative to her/his current and future well-being. The child will not only have to live with the abuse she/he has experienced, but also other people's knowledge of what occurred to her/him, the (probably redundant) attention that this may bring, and the impact that this may have on her/his ability to deal with her/his experiences. Given the abuse the child has already experienced, the non-essential publication of her/his trauma to please the curiosity of readers perhaps leads to the secondary abuse.

The National Commission for Child Welfare and Development of Pakistan (NCCWD) has also prepared a "Code of ethics for media on reporting of children's issues". There are also the guidelines of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) which say that journalists and media organisations "shall strive to maintain the highest ethical conduct in reporting in children's affairs and, in particular, they shall… consider carefully the consequences of publication of any material concerning children and shall minimise harm to children".

By Abdullah Khoso
Karachi
Friday, September 04, 2009
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=196517