Police Starts Awareness Campaign on Child Abuse

On Saturday, the district police launched a campaign to spread awareness in society about child abuse. “Mahfooz Bachay, Roshan Mustaqbil” or “Safe Kids, Bright Future” campaign is focused on sensitizing children, parents, and the overall society to the rising threat of child abuse. 

Qazi Jameelur Rehman, the DIG of the Hazara Division, addressed the inaugural session of the campaign and gave a speech. He informed that child rape cases had exponentially risen in the past couple of years. According to him, there is now a dire need to educate people and spread awareness about the possible measures that can protect their children from falling prey to such a heinous crime. 

Rehman revealed that for now the campaign had been launched and restricted only to the district of Abbottabad. But, he expressed that it will soon extend to various other districts of the division and eventually across the country. 

The DIG stated that the Hazara police would receive assistance and cooperation from madrassas, schools, civil society, colleges, transporters, and universities to ensure that the campaign was successful in spreading awareness. 

He also revealed that a committee had been formed, which would be supervised by the District Police Officer (DPO). The committee will comprise of psychologists, police officers, and an SP investigation to curb the menace that is child abuse. 

Rehman said if such an unfortunate incident occurred, the team would be proactive in helping out the child victim. He assured that members of the team would meet the parents and fully support the traumatized child. He went on to express hope towards making this campaign a successful one. 

The police have also set up a toll-free number specifically, 1120. Any citizen is free to call this number and inform the team about a potential or possible child abuse case.