M WAQAR.....
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
--Albert Einstein !!!
NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.''
تل ده وی پثتونستآن
A murderous attack in Kashmir rocks relationships throughout Asia.
On the afternoon of Thursday, Feb. 14, a massive explosion rocked a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Pulwama in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. At least 40 personnel belonging to the CRPF—a 300,000-strong paramilitary force under the Ministry of Home Affairs involved in law-and-order and counterterrorism duties—were killed as a suicide bomber drove an SUV reportedly loaded with about 600 pounds of explosives into their bus. Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan, has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the group’s role has been confirmed by Indian officials. The assault comes weeks before India’s general elections, which are expected to be held in March and April.
The next morning, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security—consisting of the prime minister and four senior ministers—held an emergency meeting and, as a first step, announced the revocation of “most favored nation” trading status for Pakistan. India had granted this status to Pakistan in 1996, although Pakistan had never reciprocated. But this is just one of the retaliatory measures likely to be taken after the worst act of Islamist terrorism in India since the Mumbai attacks in 2008.
Culpability for the attacks is unambiguous. For decades, Islamist terrorists belonging to groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba have benefited from recruitment, financing, training, and other forms of support provided by Pakistan’s security establishment. Groups targeting India and Afghanistan continue to operate with relative impunity inside Pakistan, which has only cracked down on militancy against the Pakistani state. In Jammu and Kashmir, cross-border infiltration has been facilitated by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate—its primary external intelligence agency, run by the military—and the Pakistan Army, which provides cover in the form of artillery and gun fire across the Line of Control separating Indian- and Pakistani-held territory.
Despite the highs and lows in India-Pakistan relations over the past two decades, there is no evidence that Pakistan has made serious attempts at dismantling this terrorist infrastructure. Although the frequency ebbs and flows, cross-border infiltrations continue on a regular basis: Most of these terrorists are quickly stopped or neutralized by Indian security forces, and those attacks that have been successful—including the one at Uri in 2016—have generally benefited from negligence or a good deal of luck. Given that Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for Pulwama, and the group operates openly on its soil, Pakistan cannot rely, as it has in the past, on ambiguity and plausible deniability to deflect responsibility for this attack.
Indian security forces inspect the remains of a vehicle following a deadly attack on a Central Reserve Police Force convoy near Awantipur in the Pulwama district of Kashmir on Feb. 14. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Pulwama marks an extension of recent trends concerning terrorism in India. Despite several high-profile incidents in recent years, the frequency and severity of terrorism in the country have witnessed a steady decline since 2002 and are well below the highs of the 1990s. More than 1,000 civilians were killed in terrorist attacks each year in India between 2005 and 2008. That has dropped to about 200 annually since 2015. In Jammu and Kashmir alone, civilian and security fatalities from terrorism declined—largely as a result of international pressure and improved security—from an estimated 1,700 in 2001 to 285 in 2007 and 33 in 2012. The numbers have subsequently climbed back up to 181 last year, in part as a consequence of agitations in the Kashmir Valley after July 2016 and Pakistan’s decision to try to take advantage of the situation.
The nature of terrorism in India has seen fundamental shifts over this period. Between 2000 and 2008, as violence in Jammu and Kashmir steadily declined, Islamist terrorist attacks began to occur with alarming frequency in major Indian cities. The fatalities mounted, with between 20 and 200 killed in attacks in Mumbai in 2003; New Delhi in 2005; Varanasi and Mumbai in 2006; Hyderabad in 2007; and Jaipur, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, and Mumbai in 2008. Another spate of smaller attacks occurred between 2010 and 2013 in Pune, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Hyderabad.
But since that time, the targets have shifted to primarily military and security facilities and away from major civilian and population centers. This, presumably, was intended by Pakistan to minimize international attention and censure and project such acts of terrorism as part of an unconventional military campaign. Thus, an Indian Air Force base was the target at Pathankot in January 2016, and an Indian Army post was attacked at Uri later that year. India responded to the latter incident with a series of coordinated retributive attacks across the Line of Control, which became known in India as “surgical strikes.” With an assault on the CRPF convoy, the trend continues.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan rose to power with support from the country’s powerful army. Like his predecessor, Nawaz Sharif, he has attempted to internationalize the Kashmir issue, in part to cater to various domestic constituencies. If there was any expectation that Imran’s elevation might offer India the opportunity to turn a new leaf on the relationship, that will now diminish, no matter what the outcome of the forthcoming Indian general election.
But the attack also has implications for Afghanistan, where India is already nervous about a probable U.S. military drawdown. Jaish-e-Mohammed has old connections to the Taliban and al Qaeda. In 1999, Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, was released from Indian custody as part of a hostage exchange in Taliban-controlled Kandahar, following the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft with 173 passengers and 15 crew on board. From Taliban-controlled territory, he was whisked back to Pakistan, where he returned to the business of terrorism. His organization was soon involved in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, which resulted in a massive Indian military mobilization the following year against Pakistan.
Pakistan's army has stripped a former spy chief of his pension and other benefits over a book he co-authored with his former Indian counterpart.
Maj.Durrani co-authored "Spy Chronicles," a book that documents his exploits as head of Inter-Services Intelligence from 1990 to 1992, with A.S. Daulat, the former head of India's Research and Analysis Wing, and Indian journalist Aditya Sinha. Released last year, it suggests Pakistan cooperated with the U.S. in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Ghafoor added that two military officers are also in custody facing espionage charges. He gave no further details.
As Pakistan navigates the new millennium, there are key global changes that our domestic challenges are embedded in.
The first is the rise of the anti-globalist. You can see this as a citizen that sees himself free of universalist norms, or the rights-based global order that attempted to govern the world through an architecture of rights and institutions. Arguably this global order was hegemonic and extractive in its tilt towards the West. But it strove to define itself through rights-based regimes evolved at global forums. Countries took multilateralism seriously, as well as the potential shelter from exploitation that institutions such as the UN were at least theoretically premised on.
But as globalism produced its own dystopias, today you see the Post World-War II order slipping away. In Europe and America, and here in Britain, we see it as a surge of populism and ultra-nationalism, where exclusion has become the first order of self-protection.
Frankly, populism used to not be such an ugly word in what was once called the Third World. It was associated perhaps wrongly, with leadership that deals more in the symptoms of democracy than in its actual practice. No democrat, self professed or otherwise has not been guilty of some.
Yet the new millennium, with its restless search for identity, and recognition of group over universally defined rights, has changed the way we think, as well as talk about each other.
Let’s take the West. September 11 created an architecture of global counter-terror which has run away with our global bill of rights. Renditions, off-shore prisons, black sites, intel based arrests have become the order of the day. Rights we have allowed to slip away on our watch.
Anger has become the political currency for stagnating lifestyles and unmet expectations. In many parts of Europe, the urge to nationalism resonates with large populations. The surge towards more exclusion is inevitable, at least in the near future.
America has already spoken. Trump’s wall had closed the government for two weeks. 800,000 US government employees were not paid. But Democrats refused to fund it. So President Trump has taken the unprecedented step of declareing a national emergency to enable him to raid other funds for this purpose. An unthinkable and unprecedented attack on the US concept of separate of powers. So while nothing is all one colour, and while Germany’s Merkel sets norms on inclusion, we have to agree that elections in America and Europe are increasingly defined by the politics of exclusion, leaving out immigrants, and localism, moving away from international commitments.
My concern is South Asia, and of course Pakistan, which, like many centres of the world, is becoming a more illiberal place as we lurch into the next decade without a common regional plan. As Asia integrates with Europe, driven largely by the huge Belt and Road Initiative by China, we in South Asia are busy entrenching ourselves in the language and weapons of hate. With challenges such as climate change, cyber-security and terrorism obliterating borders, we are fighting 21st century battles with the last century’s tools. Despite compelling arguments for connectivity, Pakistan and India remain bitter enemies, defined by old wars and new fault lines of mistrust, instead of trade and job dividends.
I won’t even say the B-word, but Britain’s first (Br)exit from South Asia has left Pakistan with the baggage of a dispute at the heart of its external security problem. As Kashmir pivots to core flashpoint for local insurgencies against years of ruthless Indian state-terror, we have to ask ourselves what will happen to the dream of connectivity for South Asia? How long will one-fifth of humanity become hostage to the fires of extremism and now, rampaging Modi-led Hindutva populism.
My mother always used to say that if rights and laws, which are the instruments of a strong democracy, don’t provide enough protection, don’t try to fight insecurity with repression. Fight it with the tools of democracy: which are more rights, institutionalized frameworks for conflict-resolution, and enhancements in the rule of law, and inclusion as well as egalitarianism.
Take terrorism for instance. I’m afraid the way most Westerners tackle terrorism both at home or abroad is dangerously outdated. Violent extremism and the growth of exclusionary ideologies put great pressure on the modern state. Yet it is also clear that kinetic or single-state solutions will never halt the tide.
The modern terrorist finds inspiration in gradations of injustice amidst a search for identity. The mis-use of religion or loss of community in fragile states in the Middle East, Eurasia or sub-Saharan Africa is only one part of the picture. In both scale and intensity, violent extremism has undeniably become the single largest challenge to many of our societies. In Pakistan the tug of war between moderation vs extremism has become a significant fault line. We now find ourselves in the trenches in the battle of ideas that violent extremism and terrorism have become.
To our peril, this is a problem we often overlook in Pakistan.
At the same time this is not an existential or state identity crisis, in my view, neither is this a permanent condition. Pakistan votes in non-religious political parties by and large, which if empowered over time, can and must reverse the advances that the extremist idiom and militant muscle has made. None of these parties, I warn, must fall hostage to the temptations of authoritarianism or an illiberal democratic system.
Pakistan has no shortage of commitment on the effort against extremism, militancy or terrorism today. It is impossible to open all fronts at one time, especially given the conflict in Afghanistan constantly spilling over into Pakistan both twenty years ago, and once again today. So this is a capacity issue as much as a sequencing challenge, and we often feel we are fighting this long battle with one hand tied behind our backs. At the same time I agree that we must put our shoulder to the wheel of fighting exclusion on a much broader basis than we do today. Terrorism can no longer be fought as a military or kinetic battle alone. It cannot ignore extremism, intolerance, hate and the crisis at the heart of capitalism that we are all experiencing. No country can call itself democratic or progressive if it leaves millions behind without a promise of socially responsible state.
There was growing public recoil from extremism, especially after my mother’s assassination, and all the military and civilian lives lost to it. But for a transformative shift, we need commitment and momentum in the battle of mindsets that we fight.
Like my mother, what I strive for today is a tolerant Pakistan. I too dream of a fully democratic, peaceful, progressive and prosperous Pakistan. I believe that the only antidote to extremism is an inclusive, liberal democracy for the people, of the people, by the people.
I strongly feel that in these difficult times, like the world, Pakistan needs a genuine, progressive voice. My mission is just that: to introduce a progressive alternative to the populist and hate-driven politics many in the world have gotten used to.
Today, human rights violations, terrorism, inequality, climate change, disorient the world we knew. We are now in a time of change and technological disruption, arguably, like nothing we have ever seen before. The challenges we are facing have evolved with us.
Discontent and disorder often bring out the worst in mankind and the initial reaction when faced with adversity or shrinking resources is to look inward, but we must face these challenges instead of looking away from them.
The borderless nature of the challenges we face today will force us to unite. Let us not unite only when the crisis has caused incalculable loss. Let us use these trying times as a chance to reflect and re-evaluate our values. There is no other way out of it.
At the end of the day, it our values that define us, the ideals we cherish and hold dear. My mother, as many of you know, dreamt of an inclusive Pakistan. It is our responsibility, as leaders, to care for the disillusioned and disenfranchised. She believed that this is how we will redeem our nation. But Benazir Bhutto has not been silenced. Her message, her legacy and her crusade will live on for as long as there is hope for good in this world.
My continued commitment to the enfranchisement of the marginalised, empowerment of women and minorities, and all vulnerable communities is certainly worth the risk, because it is a defining contest, among so many in any plural, diverse society. It is also a core value of the PPP policy agenda. My mother embraced her death fighting for the politics of inclusion, which in our current context, includes taking on the full spectrum of extremists, militants and terrorists.
It is rooted in two fundamentals: One, there can be no prosperous, plural, progressive Pakistan at peace with itself and its neighbours if our policies don’t champion the protection and empowerment of vulnerable groups.
Second, this is the stated roadmap laid out by the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah at his most important policy address to the new constituent assembly of Pakistan.
Like any young and fragile democracy, Pakistan’s political stability has had its fair share of rough-and-tumble. PPP has always been the vanguard of progressive politics rooted by people’s mandate. From my grandfather who has fought for these ideals with his life, to my mother who battled dictatorship, extremism and patriarchy to become the Muslim worlds first female prime minister and sacrificed her life valiantly fighting these very forces, to my father who was the first President in Pakistan’s history to complete his term and saw the country’s first peaceful transition of power from one democratic government to the other.
2013 was a momentous year for Pakistan’s democratic history and PPP, true to its ideology, made it possible. More than its significance on a grander scale, it restored hope for a truly democratic government in every Pakistani who has lived through dictatorships and suppression and in every young Pakistani looking forward to flourish in a peaceful and stable country.
We have a long way to go and it is easy to dismiss Pakistan as a state stuck in a low-growth loop, but that is also to dismiss the agency and resolve of the Pakistani people.
We cannot rewrite the wrongs of the past but we must look forward, not backward if we are to triumph over the challenges that threaten our very existence today. How do we do that in this age of exclusion, when freedoms once taken for granted, stand at risk of being reversed?
A nation’s strength stems from the strength of its institutions and the stake its citizens have in its prosperity. While fighting a full-fledged war against the forces of terrorism and extremism, and coping with millions of dislocated persons, both from natural disasters as well as military operations within Pakistan and from Afghanistan, we have made significant strides in strengthening our federation. The most important move in that direction has been devolution of power to the provinces via a historic 18th Constitutional Amendment, which has been critical in allocating national resources more equitably than ever before.
Despite critical fiscal and resource deficits our government in 2008 invested in deepening fundamental freedoms for the media and judiciary. Today, the media, particularly, is in a transition that sets its ability to speak truth to power at risk the world over. Unfortunately in Imran Khans Pakistan freedom of speech and freedom of the press are under unprecedented attack. The peoples party however, have a clear commitment to restoring and enhancing those freedoms, but also to deepening democracy.
None of it is rocket science. Regulation must not be confused with censorship. Parliament too must be treated with the respect and centrality due weight in a functional democracy. The tax base must be widened to rid ourselves of the chronic debt economy, and the resource-pie must be distributed more equitably. The poor that are food insecure must have access to food, jobs and shelter as well as fundamental rights. Access to good schooling and public health must not be divided by class or other divides. Citizens that live outside urban centres, especially in tribal peripheries, must be heard, must be given more rights. But all of this will take time.
Pakistan is experiencing a demographic shift with 64% of its population under the age of 30. Therefore, political inclusion of the youth is on top of my party’s agenda. We believe that the inclusion of youth in political discourse is essential in maintaining democratic governance, especially when polls show that youth responses towards democratic systems mirror a sense of discontent with processes currently employed for civil representation at electoral forums. Despite the fact that Pakistan’s youth is this generation’s most important demographic it is unfortunately, also the most neglected. Three out of five Pakistanis is currently under the age of 30, full of vigor and energy, a majority of them with no real employment prospects or marketable skills. Providing vocational training and job placements has been and continues to be one of PPP’s priorities.
[Bangladesh and Iran have successfully managed their population growth and now boast higher literacy rates than Pakistan, despite their own struggling economies. This only means that policy intervention and consistency are what’s missing in Pakistan.]
We have a real yet solvable problem. Pakistan needs to create 4.5 million new jobs over the next five years and enroll the 22.84 million children who are out of school to properly utilize the youth bulge.
The good news is that despite a severely contested election in 2018 we still boast high rates of political participation.
Governance remains a challenge with capacity and resource deficits. So does the provision of jobs and skilled human capital in the absence of new opportunities that have not replaced losses in an economy hit by conflict.
Pakistan today is not just about bombs and bullets. Far from it. We are the fifth most populous country in the world, with the largest youth cohort anywhere. Today Pakistan’s best story is also about our young women, our musicians, artists and athletes. It is also about Pakistan’s resilience in the face of natural calamity, its creativity, but equally and importantly, about the scale and complexity of ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity we negotiate every day.
I believe we have the ability and capacity to navigate the complexity of the challenges posed by the 21st century. It will just take a younger cohort of leadership!
Sometimes, in some places, wherever you look, you can only see wolves pretending to be human.
The town of Shahrag is one such place.
Situated in a valley in Harnai district in Balochistan, Shahrag boasts “300 to 400” coal mines that are mined by “over 30,000 men.” There are children working the mines, too, but an official count does not exist.
The district is predominantly populated by Pashtuns but a sizeable population of Marri Baloch are also scattered across its mountainous areas. Pashtuns own the majority of tribal lands in Shahrag and also live in great numbers in the town. The southern part of the Shahrag tehsil is where coal-laden mountains exist. And it is also here that the Marris live and work.
“In Shahrag,” in the words of a local Pashtun dweller, “one cannot remain jobless thanks to these mountains. If someone brings 200 men to me this very instant, I can appoint them straight away at the coal mines.”
This is why most workers here are from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab. There is also a chunk of workers who come from across the Afghanistan border. Together, these constitute about 80 percent of the workforce while the remaining 20 percent workers are locals and Baloch, especially from the Marri tribe.
Shahrag in Balochistan is known as a coal-mining town. But it also hides an ugly secret
On the face of it, Shahrag is a traditionally patriarchal society and fairly religious, too. Women hardly come out of their homes and men tend to rule the roost around here.
But Shahrag is also completely cut off from the rest of Balochistan. Nobody there quite knows what is happening in the rest of the country. Nobody in the rest of the country cares much for Shahrag either.
In this isolation, Shahrag has managed to hide its big, ugly secret: its boys are not safe from its men.
In the name of 'responsibility'
When 13-year-old Kaleem* reached the coal mines from Dir earlier this year, he didn’t expect much fanfare upon his arrival. But a colony of miners was waiting for that day to arrive.
And as soon as he set foot on the Al-Gilani branch of the mountain, where some eight coal mines are situated, the excitement became tangible. News that Dir’s coal miners had brought in a new guy to the mines spread like wildfire. He became the talk of the town and even miners from other coal mines arrived to take a look at the new boy. Kaleem wasn’t quite the new bride but quickly became the new boy that many men were lusting after.
Nestled in the mountains are cottages housing miners. ─ Photo by author
I left Shahrag city to head to the mountains early one day to meet Kaleem who I had been told about by locals. Along with about 20 others, including two boys around his age, Kaleem is housed in a mud-and-stone cottage at the top of a mountain. There are only two bedrooms and one kitchen. In the room where we sit down for a chat, there is no light other than whatever little comes from the burning stove.
Kaleem is wearing a black shalwar kameez over a yellow sports shirt. Fortunately, he is alone in the house at the time, around 3pm, because his elder colleagues are working “probably 1,700 feet below surface inside the coal pit.”
There is a big, black teapot on the stove filled with water which is boiling. He tells us that, over the last week, the weather has become frigid in Shahrag. Sitting alone next to the stove, he looks neat and clean, his black hair combed through the middle. After welcoming us, he does not utter a single word; instead, he goes out to wash two cups. Without saying a word, he pours black tea to serve us.
Kaleem is quite shy. He evades almost all questions put to him. After a series of monosyllabic answers, he blurts: “I do not have a father. I have come here to work to financially support my family back in Dir.”
What kind of work?
“I am a cook here,” he replies with a grim smile.
[Parents] turn a deaf ear to any complaints on the basis that these children are earning money ... This is why Shahrag’s children have “friendships” with people as old as their parents.
Kaleem has come to Shahrag to replace his brother. They are four brothers. According to him, they belong to a very poor family. He studied till primary back home but had to leave school because the family was reeling in poverty.
“All children, including me, work here because we either do not have elders [parents, uncles] or they are disabled and senile,” Kaleem adds. “I am paid 10,000 rupees monthly.”
Herein lies the ugly reality of Shahrag’s coal mines.
Children such as Kaleem are brought here from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and even from Afghanistan for the sole purpose of sexually abusing them. They are used as sexual partners by mature coal miners — these boys are either unable to say no to unwanted advances or need the cash offered in exchange for providing sexual services.
At first, even Kaleem does not want to talk about his situation. When asked if his body is used for sexual services, he does not reply. He simply leaves the room.
Miners return from their shift. ─ Photo by author
The first shift at the mines ends just after 3pm and the miners begin to emerge. All of them come to sit with us and we quickly change the discussion. The talk is now about the vulnerability felt by the coal miners in the mines. As we are about to leave, I spot Kaleem sitting on a big rock and chatting with a tall man.
“He [Kaleem] is their special guy,” relates a local miner accompanying me. “The monthly payment he is given is remuneration for satisfying their lust, not to work. They do not let him in the coal mine because he will get blackened.”
Such treatment is not meted out to Shah Farman*, a 16-year-old who arrived from Swat in 2017. Since then, he has been working as a coal cutter against a monthly salary of 35,000 rupees. But while he is at the mines, he has been routinely raped by adult men. Nobody bats an eyelid at what happens to Shah Farman almost every day. They tell me, “It’s all normal.”
Abuse as a way of life
Sexual abusers come in all forms and sizes. But they present themselves as ordinary human beings with an ordinary lifestyle.
For example, take Saqib*, a local coal miner in his early 40s. He is a tall man. There are white patches in his black beard and moustache. On the day we meet him, he wears a white cap and an old chador with which he has wrapped himself up. He has been in the mining business for the last 15 years.
Saqib meets us at a playground situated away from Shahrag city, near the Harnai road.
“The information you want to extract from me is strange,” he shouts when I ask him the question. “How can I tell you that we sexually abuse boys?”
But once he has settled down, he begins talking.
“Yes, I have had sex with boys in coal mines and even outside,” says Saqib. “This is not new. Swatis and other Afghans have chhothus [young sidekicks] who are their sexual partners. I do not have one because I am a local. I cannot afford that.”
The coal mines are approximately up to 6,000 feet deep. According to Saqib, children are also not spared there.
“We do have two to three children working inside the coal mines with us,” discloses Saqib, “At the time of coal cutting, deep inside the coal mines, we, the elder coal miners, have had sex with them, too. And [all this] is routine.”
He pauses to stare into the distance.
“The more you work inside the coal mine, the more you start hating it.”
He seems to imply that abuse is a form of escape.
The Red Cat and the mutkuli children
Central to most activity in Shahrag is a bus stop — those bringing coal from the mountains into the town or those leaving the town all tend to make a stopover at the adda for tea and refreshments.
We are seated at a restaurant in the adda. Around us are dozens of trucks, big and small. Some have already made the trip to the mines while others are about to embark on the journey. Amidst the bustle, we are waiting for a man known as Sira Pishi or ‘Red Cat’.
Boys volunteer their services at the Shahrag bus stop. ─ Photo by author
Sira Pishi is actually a 56-year-old man who is a notorious child abuser in the area. In the adda, he is known as Red Cat because he is red-skinned and has a red beard and moustache. He emerges out of a corner, wearing a black chador, a red Afghani cap and a beige coat. He greets us and then says nothing. I put my cup of tea in front of him which he refuses. Instead, he retrieves a few almonds from his kameez pocket, breaks their shells one by one with a stone, and starts munching on them.
“Do you think I am a lunatic that I will speak to a man holding a pen and notebook?”
Sira Pishi kept on eating his almonds as he waited for me to put the pen and notebook back into my bag. Eventually, like Saqib, he too confesses to having sexually abused children.
“Sometimes children come themselves,” claims Sira Pishi. “If not, then I can smell which children can be lured [into having sex.]”
Although children, by and large, get some kind of work at the adda, but when they don’t, sex work is always available as their fallback option.
A teenager is the centre of attention for adult miners. ─ Photo by author
His line catches me off guard. There are scores of children at the adda. As we find out later, most are aged between seven and 18 years. How many of them are vulnerable?
If Sira Pishi is to be believed, almost all these children have been sexually abused by someone or the other. One of his victims is nine-year-old Zulfiqar, who works as a mutkuli separating clay, sand and stone from the coal. He has been working since he was six years.
“This [sexual abuse] is nothing new,” Zulfiqar waves the question of abuse away. “Because all that we want is money. Our parents send us here to earn money, no matter what it costs.”
Zulfiqar has four brothers and one sister. His father is unable to work in his old age.
And he ended up at the adda because his mother wanted him to start earning a wage as soon as possible.
“My mother once saw a neighbour’s children going out to work,” describes the nine-year-old. “She saw that these kids would hand their mother money for whatever work they could find at the adda. And so she also started sending me to work.”
Zulfiqar’s main job is to help load trucks — everyday, he carries at least 60 kg of coal on his little shoulders.
“I do so all on my own. Sometimes, I load four trucks along with other children,” he claims, while wrapping himself up with a chador to save himself from the cold.
“There are four children required for each and every truck. Against it, we are paid 400 rupees per day.”
But such jobs require the boys to mingle with the men. In most cases, they are supposed to work with mature men. This often means that they give up their agency over their body as the men tend to inappropriately touch them and spank them. This is the least of it; the more extreme form is rape.
“I want to become a truck driver,” shares Zulfiqar, “not more than that.”
More probing into the whys of this dream reveals an uglier reality: truck drivers tend to travel with a young sidekick who they can molest and abuse at will. Twelve-year-old Faqir*, for example. All day long, he sits in the driver’s seat of a truck and is only used as a sexual partner by the men. He gets 400 rupees per day as compensation.
Although children, by and large, get some kind of work at the adda, but when they don’t, sex work is always available as their fallback option. Sira Pishi claims there are children who come to him themselves because they know he will pay. Interviews with about 20 of these boys also suggest that due to the fear of returning home empty-handed, they agree to get raped. In some cases, children are shown greener pastures or given the promise of a gift. ‘Red Cat’ claims he regularly ‘used’ a boy in exchange for a cell phone. Other incentives for these boys include drugs.
Background interviews with Shahrag’s children suggest that their parents, in most cases, are aware of their children’s sexual exploitation. But they turn a deaf ear to any complaints on the basis that these children are earning money. And they desperately need this money to make ends meet. This is why Shahrag’s children have “friendships” with people as old as their parents.
Meanwhile, Sira Pishi tells us he accosts children standing near trucks. One boy is his favourite; he invites him over often during the afternoon. Intercourse takes place in the confines of Sira Pishi’s home where the boy can be made “to feel special.”
Mine to mine
Legend has it that 12-year-old Nasir was “attractive and handsome, as most Afghan boys are.” His family had fled from Afghanistan and sought refuge in Pakistan. To make ends meet, Nasir would sell everyday items to coal miners. According to some accounts, coal miners would try to sodomise him. He would refuse sexual favours but often had to go back to the same men to financially support his family.
Nasir’s worst nightmare came to pass one day.
He went to one of the mines on his own but on his way back, he was kidnapped, allegedly by two Afghan coal miners. After brutally raping him, they killed him out of fear of reprisals and the police. They buried him in a nearby mine so that the police and family members could not track him down. Before anyone could find his grave, the culprits had already fled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, and they could not be arrested.
The story is used by some locals to claim that most of the sexual abuse is happening in and around the mines and not in Shahrag town proper. Others explain this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Situated next to Harnai Road in Shahrag town is the Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation (PMDC) office. On its website, the PMDC claims to have leased over 6,551 acres of land in Shahrag. Over a cup of black tea, young office assistant Shah Abbas Shah claims the department owns between 300 to 400 coals mines in the town but only just over 500 of workers are registered with them.
The school saving boys from sexual abuse. ─ Photo by author
Although Shah tells Eos that they monitor safety measures in the mines on a daily basis, as well as look after the protection of children working at the coal mines, the reality in the mines is obviously different. One measure taken by the government is that it runs a school for coal miners’ children. Although it is a high school, it wears the look of a primary school in a dilapidated state. The building’s walls are cracked. It neither has water nor a bathroom (either for children or the teachers). Yet, it is a ray of hope for children — in large part due to the efforts of Islamiat teacher Hafiz Basheer.
Basheer wears a black waistcoat over white clothes and a white turban. Among his colleagues, he is known as a “principled” teacher. He goes to the coal mines and asks the parents to send the children to school, instead of sending them to work. Sometimes, the parents relent; at other times, he is shooed away.
“More than anything else,” says Basheer, “the sole purpose of his asking children of coal miners to come to the school is to protect them from social evils.” He acknowledges the fact that these children are routinely sexually exploited. This is what always perturbs him, too.
Shahrag is among the places in Balochistan where children seem to have been desensitised to the intimacy associated with sex. Intercourse seems to be something to profit off of or a source of employment to forget some other worry. And among the children, sexual exploitation has been normalised to the extent that boys themselves show the same desires of lust and rape. This is even before they have turned 16.
“When they first get admission here,” relates Basheer, “they arrive not knowing anything. They know nothing about the outside world or what is considered civilised. It is somewhat like living in the Stone Ages. Through education, we are trying to get them to understand right from wrong. We are trying to teach them their rights.”
The Government of Pakistan has also set up schools in Shahrag for both boys and girls. Other than these schools, there are also madressahs in the town. Having interviewed some parents about why they send their children to a madressah instead of a school, the near-unanimous response was that only religious education could help their children to heaven on the Day of Judgement. This is the foremost reason that their children seek education in madressahs, not in schools.
Basheer himself, despite being an Islamiat teacher, has been unable to convince parents to send their children to school instead. One major reason why parents are reluctant is the case of a student from Dir named Abid Siddique.
Siddique was a position holder in his school till 2008 and completed matriculation from there. Although his teachers had big dreams and expectations of him, he is now back at the same coal mine, in the Al-Gilani mountains, where he used to work as a child.
Between the lines, the teacher alludes to the psychological damage that has been dealt to boys in Shahrag. Those raised on abuse will abuse someone else, just as they were abused when they were children. There is ample research that suggests that child abuse will repeat itself from generation to generation. This cycle of abuse gravely impacts those who have been at the receiving end of prolonged abuse because, once grown up, they are likely to become the abusers and prey on children.
But there is no psychological or law-enforcement help at hand in Shahrag. In fact, Quetta-based Chief Inspector of Mines Engineer Iftikhar Ahmad Khan tells Eos that, “there are no children working at the coal mines in Shahrag.”
Without acknowledging that a crisis exists, how can there be any remedy?
Sexual abuse of boys and young men is not just a phenomenon particular to Shahrag. Sahil, an Islamabad-based NGO that works with child victims of abuse, notes in its 2018 report Cruel Numbers that as many as 3,445 children — 2,077 girls and 1,368 boys — were sexually abused in Pakistan in 2017. Balochistan reported only 139 cases of sexual abuse. These incidents were all reported in the press but the number of unreported cases might well be higher.
The report makes the claim that among reported cases, 467 cases were reported under rape, 366 under sodomy, 158 under gang rape, 180 under gang sodomy and 206 under attempted child sexual abuse. It also describes that 29 boys and 36 girls were murdered after being made victims of sexual abuse. Around 961 victims fell in the age bracket of 11 to 15 years while 640 cases of sexual abuse surfaced where the survivors were aged between six and 10 years. In the 16 to 18 age bracket, 351 cases were formally reported.
Perhaps what sets Shahrag apart is the normalisation of child abuse. Consider government records, for example. While the mines department has recorded the number of adult miners working in Shahrag, the figure is under-reported. These estimates have, in fact, not recorded the number of children working in the mines or those working as house help etc.
On the other hand, the law in Pakistan does provide some safeguards for children. The Pakistan Penal Code, for example, was amended back in April 2017 to include stipulations against crimes aimed at children. Section 292-A criminalises any exposure of children to seduction. Similarly, Section 328-A describes the offence of cruelty to a child and its punishment. Sections 377-A and 377-B are explicitly about the offence of child sexual abuse and its punishment.
The problem comes at the implementation end.
Desolation and desperation are accepted in Shahrag as justifications for the practices of child labour and child abuse. The government neither keeps a record of children working at the mines nor as support staff. And any notion of child protection seems out of place because of the prevalence of the practice.
“Sometimes, as teachers, we also become hopeless,” laments Hafiz Basheer. “I thought Abid Siddique would be a role model for other children of coal miners and he would be an officer somewhere in a government sector. Contrary to expectations, he has started working again as a coal miner. This is why children of coal miners always give me his example when I request them to come to study in the school.”
Former President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari has urged the PTI-led Pakistan government to cooperate with Iran over the recent terror attack near Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan.
He advised so, responding to a query at a press conference in Islamabad yesterday.
Pakistan People's Party (PPP) co-chairman Zardari said that situation arising after the terror attack is very dangerous.
“Iran is our neighbor and we should be mindful that it is a very large army so we should not have any problem with them,' said Asif Ali Zardari.
He said: 'We should cooperate with them to address their concerns.'
The recent killing of more than 40 Indian soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir by a suicide bomber belonging to the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant group in Kashmir’s Pulwama district has put Pakistan and India into another confrontation. In retaliation, India has not only withdrawn Most Favored Nation Status (MFN) from Pakistan, but has also announced that it will take important steps to completely isolate Pakistan internationally. Moreover, reportedly Indian “armed forces have been given a free hand to formulate appropriate retaliation strategies.” However, the subject of retaliation strategies is an approach that doesn’t necessarily call for an immediate military response and it can can take weeks and months to put in place a long-term plan to counter and deter such incidents.
Arguably, the most important takeaway from India’s response to the incident is that New Delhi has decided to ramp up escalation with Pakistan on the political front rather than going for the military option, at this point. There are a number of reasons why India may have decided to take this policy course rather than immediately hitting back militarily.
It is important to note that India is buzzing ahead of an election season. The government of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is primarily focused on winning the next general election, which is scheduled to take place in the next few months. While military action against Pakistan at this point may win the BJP some electoral support domestically, it’s unclear what sort of military action can attain such a desired result and whether the government, which is uncertain about its own future in power, has the political will to follow-through.
About two years ago, India allegedly carried out surgical strikes in Pakistan in response to a militant attack that took place in Uri, in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan for its part never admitted that such a military strike was carried out by India. However, for India, the declaration of carrying out a surgical strike served the purpose of containing the ratcheting war rhetoric domestically while for Pakistan, the denial meant the strikes never took place. Hence, Islamabad didn’t need to respond militarily in return, which could have become necessary had Pakistan acknowledged that Indian troops had entered Pakistan’s territory and targeted some areas.
Arguably, if India’s alleged surgical strikes have not been able to deter terrorists from planning more attacks than the next military response from New Delhi has to be bigger than what happened two years ago. However, that’s an area which is filled with a lot of risks, miscalculations and escalations triggers and clearly, the government in India which is about to go to the polls doesn’t want to enter into a phase that could have blowback impact on its electoral gains. For now, by putting the blame for the incident on Pakistan, the government in India has already achieved some electoral mileage.
Even for Indian authorities, beyond the blame game and war rhetoric, it’s too early to confirm whether the bombing had any support from Pakistan at the state level. So far, India maintains that by not taking decisive action against the leadership of the JeM, Pakistan is actually fomenting terror in Jammu and Kashmir. Moreover, it’s unclear whether the attack was solely the work of local Kashmiri militants that carried out an attack in association with JeM’s name.
Regardless, from Pakistan’s perspective, it doesn’t make sense why the country’s military and civilian leadershipwould want to undermine their own efforts of rapprochement with India. The argument that Pakistan’s security establishment doesn’t support the civilian government’s recent initiative to improve ties with India doesn’t stand for two reasons: One, it is Pakistan’s security establishment that is interested in developing a workable relationship with New Dehli and it has clearly owned the current government initiatives in this regard. Two, if Pakistan’s security establishment wants to undermine the elected government’s efforts of reaching out to India, the former doesn’t need to support an incident of such magnitude. Historically, firings across the Line of Control (LoC) have achieved such results when desired.
Moreover, the timing of the attack doesn’t make sense from Pakistan’s perspective. The tragic incident has taken place when the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad Bin Salman, is visiting both India and Pakistan. The visit adds an interesting twist to a situation, which has the potential to escalate to a major crisis between the two regional powers. The last thing Islamabad would want to do is to undermine a state-level visit from a powerful figure who is bringing billions of dollars’ worth of investments to Pakistan. While the leadership in India is planning a response to the incident, both New Delhi and Islamabad are likely to consider the presence of the crown prince as a significant factor when they devise the response measures in the coming week.
If one takes away the argument of alleged state-level support from Pakistan, it cannot be denied that some elements that aim to undermine Pakistan and India’s ties are clearly at work. Addressing the same challenge, Pakistan’s current foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, in a recent interview said that “there will be spoilers, there will be events that will scuttle [Pakistan-India] peace process but terrorism is a global phenomenon. Instead of getting to a blame game we have to cooperate more.”
If one is to go with what Pakistan’s foreign minister said recently then clearly there are elements in Pakistan that are acting on their own and are not in the state’s control. It’s undeniable that JeM leadership is based in Pakistan’s Punjab province and the Pulwama suicide bombing was claimed by the group. While JeM remains a banned group in Pakistan, the group’s leadership is not necessarily isolated in Pakistan when it comes to the outfits movement and networking in the country. While Islamabad has officially condemned the attack on Indian forces, New Delhi clearly blames Pakistan for the attack. If Pakistan’s government and military leadership are serious about improving ties with India, then some sort of action against the leadership of the JeM has to take place in Pakistan.
The attack in Pulwama doesn’t only appear to be an effort to undermine Pakistan’s ties with India, but also an effort to push the region into a dangerous phase. In any case, what is scary is that the region will become increasingly hostile in the coming months.
