Suffer little Children?

Religion & Children's RightsBy Zaffarullah Khan

Sad story from Pakistan

Now, they are called, 'rat children' though were born to normal humans. It happened because they fell pray (and continue to be) to the worst physical abuse by a quasi-religious ritual in Gujrat (Pakistan).

The myth spread by 'pir' (spiritual leader) of the tomb, which perpetuates this abuse, goes that if an issue-less woman pledges to give her first baby to be a life-long devotee at the tomb, the prayers of the 'pir' can bring back her fertility. Pakistan's 70 percent population is illiterate and infertility there means prompt divorce. Therefore, the trap works. As soon as the newly born baby is dropped at the tomb, in order to block his/her mental growth an iron-cap is locked on the skull for years. Eventually s/he grows-up with a very small head and virtually no mental capabilities. For rest of their life to be called 'Shah Daula'h key chohey' (Rats of Shah Daula'h-name of pir) and to perform only two duties; first to participate in the rituals at the tomb and secondly to beg money for their spiritual leader.

Perhaps this is the worst example of abuse of children in the world on the altar of so-called faith blended with customs. However it is not the only abuse on the name of religion or quasi-religious spirituality, in Pakistan-the second largest Muslim country on the globe. Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has exposed on occasions, the physically fettered children in 'Deeni madaris' (religious seminaries). The HRCP's recent report, reveals, 'the deeni madaris not only firmly believed in not sparing the rod, many of them literally kept their wards in chains.'The Madina Mosque and madrisa'h in Lahore had had 14 children of 7-17 years of age continually in chains for up to three years. The chains were taken off only briefly when it could not be helped, for instance for changing clothes etc. The children's ankles and wrists had developed deep scars from prolonged bleeding and running sores.' 1 This is not an isolated episode, rather fettering children is a common practice in Pakistan. It happens because most of the children find it hard to learn by heart entire verses of Quran in alien Arabic language.

Along with such physical abuse the sexual exploitation of the students of 'deeni madaris' is quite frequent. In 1998 a newspaper reported on this otherwise a taboo wrapped in spiral of silence, only to became victim of the wrath of the religious group involved in it, which attacked the newspaper, burnt it's copies, issued a 'fatwa' (decree) of reporter's death. At the end of day the besieged reporter had to run away from the country to seek asylum. Such a high profile case could not put a full stop on the odd practice, which most of the time deliberately goes unchecked owing to the terrorising street power of the religious clerics and undue social reverence they enjoy by selling divine myths.

Another associated form of child abuse on the name of religion in Pakistan is the unchecked recruitment of the under 18 to fight in neighbouring Afghanistan, popularly known as 'Taliban' (students of religious schools). They are taught mediaeval theology and syllabus, leaving them complete dumb and fully indoctrinated. After their so-called victory in Afghanistan, many more 'Deeni Madaris' in Pakistan are imparting military training to their under 18 students, to inculcate firm faith in 'guns and grenades' as the fifth divine book to kill the infidels and seculars and hope for some puritan revolution in the long run. Yet another face of these 'Talibans' is the total denial of education and health services to young girls and women.

Besides the odds growing on the fertile but blessed with ignorance religious schools, at societal level many feudal lords marry their pre-pubescent daughters with 'Quarn' just to avoid division of their property. Hence denying them normal emotional life. Another form of child abuse could be understood from a recent example, that just a month before the recent military take-over in October 1999, a religious political party led by a cleric, brought students of its' religious schools on roads. The children 8-18 (not entitled to vote or join politics as per country's laws) were holding placards, inviting chief of the army staff for help which means nothing but imposition of martial law. None of the protesting child was able to differentiate between democracy and military dictatorship in terms of their rights and owing to the inflated power of clergy very few voices of reason protested on it.

Until now, I have narrated the multiple abuses, which are perpetuated by private religious groups under the nose of a government, which is signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Children and stands committed to improve children's lives by 2000 AD.  But what we can expect from the government which itself could be accused of abusing the innocence of the children. It has made 'Islamiat' (Islamic studies) a compulsory subject at each and every grade and for every professional degree. Not only this rather those who have learnt Quran by heart are awarded twenty extra marks, leaving the minorities at disadvantageous position.

Similarly, the blasphemy laws enacted by pervious military dictator, Ziaul Haq has resulted in worst form of abuses. Young as 13-years, Salamat Masieh (an uneducated Christian boy) was awarded capital punishment in 1995 for allegedly writing disgracing remarks against the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad. I can continue with this sad saga and can site many more examples from Pakistan and many other writers can pick similar episodes of shame from other societies, cultures and faiths. What they establish beyond doubt is an on-going and un-checked abuse of children's innocence on the altar of religion and cults. Definitely a wake-up call for people with conscience.

Global Curse

The abuse of children on the name of religion is not a phenomenon confined to any single country or a particular faith or cult. Donald Capps in his presidential address to members of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in 1992 described religion and child abuse, "perfect together … and mutually attractive." 2

The above mentioned country specific diverse information testifies his assertion in more than one way. So one can claim that the religious beliefs and structures both, real or ritualistic, often encourage, foster, and justify child abuse. The closed and by and large isolated structures of religious seminaries and places of worship like church, mosque, temple etc. facilitate abusers with opportunities to live with their evil desires and horrifying practices behind the tall walls and dark rooms.

Before embarking on further analysis if we rely on the UNICEF's figures which estimates that there are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. Nature brought them all to this world through a similar biological process but parents put various tags like Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist etc. to nurture them according to their faith. Religious leaders of each faith make money by facilitating that on the name of faith related rituals. The children as the powerless property of the parents had to bear this oppressive burden of rituals and customs, much before their independent conscience or faculties like critical thinking are developed to enable them to differentiate between what is good or bad for them.

Greven rightly notes that ‘abusive parenting styles have been driven by mainstream religious beliefs for centuries.’3  Along with doctrinal factors other reasons behind it appears to be that by and large children are not valued by religious leaders, and even, very often by their own parents who blindly accept theological and other justifications offered by the clergy to remain uninvolved in the worldly things including the lives of their children.

Along with mainstream religions child abuse in various quasi-religious cults is quite common. The children are often cults’ most devastating casualties. Just to quote two examples, 'of the 912 People’s Temple members who died in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978, 276 were children. Similarly of more than 80 who died at Waco, 25 were children. Apart from these highly shocking examples another fact remains that in cults children are not harmed only physically, rather rarely receive any formal education or develop correctly on emotional, social, and cognitive levels.' 4

Religion related abuse is often facilitated or hidden by closed and hierarchical structures of religious institutions like church, mosques and temples etc. forcing the victims to internalise pain and suffering and avoid disclosures against powerful clerics/clergy revered by their parents. Such an attitude results in continuation of the abuse amid imposed spiral of silence, because the chances for the perpetrators being discovered or punished are virtually diminished.

Ostensibly every religion claims to be for the enlightenment and welfare of humanity. But their evolution is stained with massive human blood, including that of innocent children. Just to quote one recent example from Chechnya (Russia) where Islamic militants fought for their independence, of the total casualties of 60,000 to 100,000, forty percent were children. History is burdened with thousands of disabled Afghan children and many other languishing in refugee camps all over the world only to tell us about the scale of their miseries.

There can not be two opinions that opportunities like liberal education and gradual growth of faculties like observation, experiment, analysis, and reasoning enables many of us to reject dogmatic religious claims at the later stage of our lives. A few of us simply rebel to protest what happened to us when it should have not. However few remain unlucky forever especially in the developing world and are bred to remain dumb to become 'Taliban.'  One only needs to pick up a newspaper to realise the magnitude, gravity and complexities of the problem.

Sufferings have many faces

Broadly we can categorise the abuse of children on the name of religion into three main types: physical, psychological and sexual. All these types have their own share in devastating the innocent souls all over the world. If we peep into these types and try to un-mask the cover-ups following picture would emerge.

Physical

Historian, Philip Greven in his research points out encouragement for violent and physically abusive child rearing from Biblical passages such as following: 'He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chaseneth him betimes.' And 'withhold no correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell'  (Proverbs 13:24 & 23:13 respectively)

These passages reflect that the very idea of physical punishment is embedded in the belief system and is primarily aimed at taming or disciplining the children. Such mediaeval thoughts are part of almost every religious theology rather could be seen at work in developed and supposedly civilised countries like USA and Europe as well.

 In USA alone more than a million young people suffer abuse and mistreatment annually.5  Within this wide range of child abuse, religion related abuse figures prominently ranging from healing or treatment through prayers, complete denial or with-holding of medical care for religious reasons or orthodox practices like exorcising demons occupying children bodies and number of other ceremonial, supernatural, religious or mystical practices are part of this long list of shame. There appears to be 'a primacy of ideology over biology… childcare may be seen as a disposable superfluity.'6

Such beliefs and doctrines create ample space for abuses of worst kind. Just to narrate an example I will bank on this worst episode, ‘mild discipline gave way to making young girls strip almost nude in front of the full membership and then forcing them to take cold showers or jump into the cold swimming pool at the Redwood Valley church. Unequal boxing matches gave way to beatings with paddles, then electric shock, and finally something called a blue-eyed monster, which hurt and terrorised younger ones in a darkened room.'

Similarly once The Star and Stripes-a military newspaper in Europe, published transcription of a taped sermon by preacher, Darrell Dunn. 'The tape tells parents when disciplining children to break their will to blister their bottom red to brainwash them to spank weeks old babies, and reassure them that ‘little blue bruises’ are a positive sign from the Lord.'

In most cases religious places function as closed, often physically isolated and highly subjective societies, which resist any investigation of possible child abuse. Still a modest research on the subject has tried to expose many facts. Gaines, Wilson, Redican and Baffi (1984)7 surveyed 70 ex-cult members in order to determine the effects of cult membership on the health status of current and past members, including children Among their findings relevant to the treatment of children were following:

• 27 % of the respondent said children in their group were not immunised against common childhood diseases
• 23% said children did not get at least 8 hours of sleep a night
• 60% said their groups permitted physical punishment of children
• 13% said that children were sometimes physically disabled or hurt to teach them a lesson
• 13% said that the punishment of children was sometimes life threatening or required a physician’s care
•   61 % said families were encouraged to live together and share responsibilities37 % said that a doctor saw children when ill.

Psychological

Almost ever religion teaches children that someone (God) is always watching them and how they are supposed to behave, which inculcates fear of an imaginary creature, hell and sin etc. Such teaching scares them to the extent that instead of enjoying their innocent lives they keep on thinking about gruesome forms of death. If you ask a child to draw the caricature of God, s/he would definitely draw a powerful daddy with stick in his hand and always looking at our mistakes to get a chance to beat us.

Such imaginary fears of a vengeful god are often damaging, murderous to child psyche causing depression, suicidal tendencies and disorders. Children born in or pushed towards religious institutions at an early age often do not have a mature personality. They are socialised only into the closed environment, which kills faculties like independent critical thinking and leave them with a very little knowledge about the world

Sexual

Sexual abuse could be further divided into three distinct sub-categories. First is the marriage of innocent children with Quran in certain orthodox Muslim societies and grooming of 'Devadasis' and 'jogins' in Hinduism. The victims in this category are young girls. Second remains the burden of centuries old rituals; like genital mutilation of girls in certain Islamic countries to disturb their hormone and make them completely subservient to the pleasure of dominating males. Circumcision of boys in Jewish and Islamic faith also falls in the same category. Third, oddity remains literal sexual intercourse or paedophile with children, always without their consent (they are not mature and free enough to say no or even differentiate it as good or bad, part of religion or just an abuse). This is worst betrayal of trust, which occurs across the gender more shockingly by the people who are ostensibly responsible for their care and well being.

Organisational hierarchies and closed structures of religious institutions create opportunities for such child abuse to occur within their premises. In 1993 in USA, father David Holly, a Roman Catholic priest was sentenced to 275 years for his admitted sexual molestation of eight young boys. Similarly another study revealed that ‘about half 48% of ridding evil cases and a quarter (23%) of neglect cases included allegations of sexual abuse. For example, a psychiatrist reported that his adult female client claimed that she experienced at age 7 what is the equivalent of gang rape in the name of religion-announcement was made to assemble men, that it was to rid the child of the devil.8  One can narrate many more stories just to add more to the pain.

Another shocking revelation has been made in recent studies that 'physical abuse has decreased while sexual abuse has expanded as a proportion of the total percentage of reported cases of child abuse.'9 It does not require much intellect to reach a conclusion that the scars of physical abuse are pretty visible, whereas the guilt and pain of being sexually abused may not become public immediately. Especially when the words of children are rarely privileged over that of religious demagogues in many societies. It makes the issue even more critical.

Time to speak out

In 21st century we should have consigned the term 'abuse' to the history instead of retaining it in worst forms like child abuse. However time is changing, though at a very small pace. One can pinpoint number of civic initiatives working to protect the children. However the religion related abuses are missing from mainstream discourses and owing to such silence sizeable number of abuses hardly see the light of day or even if they do the religious nature of the abusers magnifies their capacity to avoid scrutiny. Hence often the crime goes un-punished.

Can we push such visible and invisible crimes under the carpet any more, perhaps not. It is a time to break the spiral of silence and speak out. Keeping in mind the existence of the curse at global level along with its' complexities and sensitivities we need to find viable solutions within the widely endorsed framework of universal human rights. Secondly while these abuses take place on the name of quasi-religious rituals, custom and traditions, thus we need to devise protective shield against the strong abusers by making them realise that time has changed and they too would have to abandon their primitive caves and liberate those who are in their cage.

In this regard first of all there is a dire need to conduct a global research involving all faiths to qualify and document abuses of children under the shadows of various religions and their rituals. Such research should also focus on how parents especially the poor, the illiterate and the dispossessed are easily trapped into the abusive net of religion. Only then we can figure out a humanist policy and a workable strategy to tackle this complex issue.

At policy level, I would endorse the IHEU's stand to treat religion as an adult matter and realise that morality does not come from religion alone. However at strategy level after global research we can effectively plead for creation of any world wide child protection authority to monitor on going religious education and they way it is imparted.  Of-course it is a global problem and we need global awareness about it. In this regard media can play a role of public eye through investigative reports and help break the spiral of silence.

Along with narrow religious teaching within religious schools, in many countries what we see is a trend of introducing religious studies as a compulsory subject and often the day at schools start with prayers or hymns at assemblies. In ours globalised world no place is free of plurality.  Thus instead of particular religious studies we need to introduce comparative study of religions or secular ethics. Similarly instead of religious prayers and hymns, poems of peace and tolerance could be a good idea.

Finally, of course it is not going to be an easy task, because what various religions have attained is the result of their centuries old exploitation. However at humanist level it is already a late awakening and if we couldn't divorce our apathy towards child abuse on the name of religion, then it will be too late to break the vicious circle. Yesterday we suffered, today our children are suffering, tomorrow our children's children. If we won't be able to do anything substantial to protect the posterity in the age of human rights and global awareness and advocacy, then we as well will be remembered as a black spot in the course of evolution, but little thick one because we had the information but opted for inaction.

1              HRCP, State of Human Rights Report, 1998, pg. 232

2              Child Abuse in Hare Krishna Movement 1971-1986 by E. Burke Rochford & Jennifer Heinlein, at http://www.ccrgroup.com/voice/burke_rochford.html

3              Ibid.

4              Cults’ impact on children, youth and families (WWW. Factnet.org/cif/cif.htm

5               US Bureau of the Census 1997 pg. 218

6               Michael D. Langone & Gary Eisenberg, 'Children and Cults', www.factnet.org/ Scientology/childclt2.htm

7              Ibid.

8              Bette L. Bottoms, In the Name of God: A profile of Religion Related Child Abuse' Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 51, No. 2, 1995 pp. 85-111

9              Ibid.