By Hala Al-Qahtani
WE are worried about children’s issues in society and we take them seriously as if they are our own children. If anyone turns his back to one issue concerning children, society would team up to address the issue. We prepare our children for the future and we should not deal with their cases with ego. We have to shoulder our responsibility toward children with humaneness.
Every child who may face abuse or neglect should be considered as our own child so long as he or she lives with us under the same sky. Even though we are able to protect our children today we cannot expect that we will be able to protect them always. We cannot ensure that they will receive good treatment after we die. Nothing is for granted, especially when we are in a helpless situation. We have to strengthen the rule of law to punish those who abuse children.
The government has already enacted a law to protect children and we look forward to have a tougher executive bylaw to deter people who abuse and attack children.
It was because of God’s will we came to know the case of the abused Khaybar children and we were able to save them, do justice to them and prevent injustice against them. It exposed the negligence of various agencies who were supposed to protect them after learning that the children were going through a difficult situation. But the authorities did not move until the children were on the verge of death.
For every crime there will be some silent accomplices. Some people think they are doing a great job by covering up the case and when it surfaces they trade accusations. In this case we want to hear the sound of law. But nothing is for granted because every child torture case ends up with shocking and frightening results. The weak points force us to test the effectiveness of the child protection law. We are not at all doubtful about the clarity of the bylaw but doubtful about the mechanism for its implementation.
Article 2 of the law insists that children must be protected from all types of torture and that scientific and practical mechanisms must be created to deal with such cases. We should not ignore the mechanism and set free a culprit after taking written undertakings because of the consideration that the offender is the child’s parent and reconciliation is the best option.
This wrong belief will complicate the issue like the case of the Khaybar children. The case shows that the mother of 14 children mistreated her three children by keeping them in the bathroom and denying them food for two years continuously, as reported by their father, and for three years, according to another version given by their uncle. There is yet another account given by the Khaybar governor. According to him, the issue was all about mistreatment and poor care of children.
A 12-year-old child, who was in good health, was subjected to starvation and confinement in a bathroom and was beaten almost every day. His 14-year-old sister faced confinement for 10 years and she was not allowed even to see her sister. Her 20-year-old sister was subjected to starvation and was put in solitary confinement in a room on the terrace. She was also beaten occasionally.
There are at least three important points, which we should not ignore.
According to the uncle, the reason for torture was money. The mother started denying the children food after she received citizenship as she wanted to obtain benefits of special needs children given by the Ministry of Labor and Social Development.
The mother has a girl suffering from anemia and she had registered her name with the ministry to get financial assistance along with another girl. The mother grabbed the cards of the two girls to get the ministry’s assistance for herself.
The governor of Khaybar pointed out that the case was at least one and a half year old. The Human Rights Commission had investigated the case and the case was closed after an undertaking in front of the governor that the mother would take care of the children properly. But the governor did not say who gave that written undertaking.
Isn’t it clear now who had complicated the issue? The Human Rights Commission had promised to take legal action against the person who complicated the issue. The governor also pointed out that the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution found that the woman was mentally unstable and was set free without taking enough precautionary measures to protect the children.
The children’s uncle and the Human Rights Commission were wondering about the case and its pros and cons. This bewilderment will continue for some time but the first and final victims of the case will be the children themselves.
