Over 280 village children filmed victims of sexual abuse
On Sunday the provincial government has announced to open a judicial inquiry into a major scandal of alleged sexual abuse of hundreds of children and extortion.
At least 280 children were filmed while 25 men sexually abused a group of them, before blackmail relatives of the victims, threatening to stream the videos if they did not pay, said Latif Ahmed Sara, a representative of the victims’ families.
The children, mostly aged under 14, were also forced to have sex with each other in more than 400 videos made since 2007 in the village of Hussain Khanwala, southwest of Lahore, reported Dr. Sara and local media.
“Approximately 300 videos of these children were released and one in two children of this village is a victim” of this sex scandal, said Sara, an activist for the rights of victims.
Chief Minister Punjab Main Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif said that he had asked an independent judicial inquiry into the case. This is the biggest scandal of alleged sexual abuse and extortion of children in the history of Pakistan, which angered rights activists and media.
“The people involved in this business will be punished and the affected families obtain justice at any cost,” said Shahbaz Sharif in a statement.
This case constitutes “the biggest scandal of children abuse in Pakistan’s history,” said the head of the Child Protection Bureau Punjab Saba Sadiq.
Initially commissioned report last week by the provincial government of Punjab to the police, the local authorities had dismissed allegations of abuse and had described as “unfounded”.
