I was afraid," he says. "I didn’t know," he says.The boy isn’t sure of his age."I didn’t move.It is even more seldom prosecuted. "I am not sure what it will take to expose the extent of it. It’s very dangerous to even try.In south Punjab, a cleric was convicted of sexually assaulting a minor girl in 2016 and sentenced to 12 years in jail and the equivalent of a USD 1,500 fine.He compares the situation to the abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church.A Pakistani boy who was allegedly raped by a mullah or religious cleric, sits before villagers in Vehari, Pakistan on Aug. It is very bad what they do to the children there. The official asks to remain anonymous for fear of retribution; he has been a target of suicide attacks because of his hard position against militant groups.The fear of clerics was evident at the courthouse in Kehrore Pakka, where the former teacher of Parveen’s son waited his turn to go before a judge."It’s too dangerous here," said one person, looking over at the militants nearby. 18.."Local police deny charges that they favored the cleric or intimidated the family.

The students they teach are often among the country’s poorest, who receive food and an education for free. And cases rarely make it past the courts, because Pakistan’s legal system allows the victim’s family to "forgive" the offender and accept what is often referred to as "blood money. But his brother beat him and told him to go back. Still, Maqsood says, when he went to the police, his honesty was questioned. Seeing them, the cleric fled, and the men took the bleeding girl home, the report said. He pleaded with his older brother not to send him back.In August, when the boy was home, the thought of returning to his madrassa became too much.The boy had studied for a year at a nearby Islamic school in the town of Kehrore Pakka. The payoff from offending mullahs to police means that they often refuse to even register a case, says Azam Hussain, a union councilor in Kehrore Pakka."The teacher had already confessed, according to police, and the police report said he was found with the boy. And the families involved are often poor and powerless."Did he rape you?" He buries his face in his scarf and nods yes."I am married," he said."Did he touch you?′ He nods."That’s a very dangerous topic," he says.Many more madrassas — small two- or three-room seminaries in villages throughout Pakistan — are unregistered, opened by a graduate of another madrassa, often without any education other than a proficiency in the Quran."His assessment was echoed by another senior official, a former minister who says sexual abuse in madrassas happens all the time.Police Help the Mullah The fear that surrounds sexual abuse by clerics means that justice is rare. And the third was of a 10-year-old boy sodomized by the madrassa principal when he brought him his meal.

The whispers grew louder and more insistent."I was crying.A Pakistani boy who was allegedly raped by a mullah or religious cleric, sits on a swing in Kehror Pakka, Pakistan on May 4. He was hurting me. Yet he swore his innocence in court. His voice is barely a whisper, his head bent low as he talked. Leave the courthouse, they can do anything here.Her uncle, Mohammed Azam, points across a field to the madrassa, surrounded by a high wall.They scowled and moved closer when an AP reporter sat next to the teacher, who was shackled to a half dozen other prisoners."Pakistan’s clerics close ranks when the madrassa system is too closely scrutinized, he says.Last July, a cleric "forcibly took her shalwar off and started molesting her," according to the police report obtained by the AP.He says the cleric threatened him with death if he told anyone.The boy says another student at his seminary was assaulted by the same cleric.A.This is a genuine case but the family took money to not speak about it, Rana Mohammad Jamal says of an alleged rape attempt on a girl by mullah or cleric in Kehror Pakka."A sign for the madrassa is emblazoned with the flag of a Taliban-affiliated group. The cleric threatened to kill the boy if he told."Basic responsibility, when something happens, is with the head of the madrassa," says Mufti Mohammed Naeem, the head of the sprawling Jamia Binoria madrassa in the city of Karachi. (Photo: AP)However, unlike the Catholic Church, which has a clear hierarchy topped by the Vatican, there is no central religious authority that governs madrassas.Madrassas are funded by wealthy business people, religious political parties and even donors from other countries, such as Saudi Arabia. "Police help the mullah. The investigation was based on police documents and dozens of interviews with victims, relatives, former and current ministers, aid groups and religious officials. The teachings of the madrassas are guided by schools of Islamic thought, such as Shiite and Sunni.. But in a culture where clerics are powerful and sexual abuse is a taboo subject, it is seldom discussed or even acknowledged in public. There is also no central body that investigates or responds to allegations in religious schools.A handcuffed Pakistani cleric who is accused of the rape of a student, waits for his turn outside a court."We would hear that these kinds of things happen, children raped in the madrassas, but you never know until it happens to your family," says Azam, her uncle. "This thing is very common, that this is happening.The cleric was set free. He denies that any abuse takes place inside the madrassa. "My wife is pretty, why would I do this to a kid?"How Madrassas WorkThere are more than 22,000 registered madrassas or Islamic schools in Pakistan.Religious Affairs Minister Sardar Muhammad Yousaf dismisses the suggestion that sexual abuse is widespread, saying such talk is an attempt to malign the religion, seminaries and clerics. He says he was not aware of even the cases reported in the newspapers, but that it could occur occasionally ’because there are criminals everywhere.

The top police officer in the district center of Multan, Deputy Inspector General Police Sultan Azam Temuri, also denies that pressure from clerics or powerful politicians prompts police to go easy in such cases. With this rise, reporting of sexual abuse in madrassas has trickled off, said human rights lawyer Saif-ul Mulk. He shoved my shirt in my mouth," the boy says, using his scarf to show how the cleric tried to stifle his cries. The same cleric had in the past managed to get several families to settle over sexual abuse cases because of his close links to religious extremist groups, said local officials. Police are often paid off not to pursue justice against clerics, victims’ families say. He says he believes abuses occurred predominantly in the small madrassas that spring up in poor neighborhoods, "where it is just the mullah and no one can say who he is, and he can do anything. Police say they investigate when a complaint is made, but they have no authority to take a case forward when the family accepts money, which often happens."Parveen, the mother of the 9-year-old boy who says he was raped by his teacher in Kehrore Pakka, vowed that she would never give in to intimidation. He says cases are investigated when allegations are made.In cases that are pursued, convictions do occasionally happen.Demonstrations by villagers forced the cleric’s re-arrest. Parveen’s son, for example, went to an unregistered madrassa.Far more often, the family gives in, as in the case of a 9-year-old girl who was raped by the maulvi of the unregistered madrassa she attended, according to a police report.As the religious right has grown stronger in Pakistan, clerics who were once dependent on village leaders for handouts, even food, have risen in stature. Each time she begins to speak, she stops, swallows hard, wipes her tears and begins again. "Did he hurt you when he touched you?" ″Yes," he whispers.A handcuffed Pakistani cleric who allegedly raped a child, stands outside a court in Kehror Pakka, Pakistan on May 4. (Photo: AP)Sexual abuse is a pervasive and longstanding problem at madrassas in Pakistan, an AP investigation has found, from the sun-baked mud villages deep in its rural areas to the heart of its teeming cities. But police released the cleric after senior Punjab government officials intervened on his behalf, according to Maqsood. (Photo: AP)"I was ashamed and I was scared," he says. Rehman of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which makes sexual abuse harder to prevent. She spent the rest of the day sitting cross-legged on a mud floor inside a swelteringly hot room sewing the traditional shalwar kameez. In the blistering heat of late April, in the grimy two-room Islamic madrassa, he awoke one night to find his teacher lying beside him. Two men heard her screams and stormed into the room, and found the cleric attacking her.Kehrore Pakka, Pakistan: Kausar Parveen struggles through tears as she remembers the blood-soaked pants of her 9-year-old son, raped by a religious cleric. Temuri says his department is trying to tackle child abuse in general with the introduction of gender and child protection services. Another incident involved the drugging and gang rape of a 12-year-old boy asleep on his madrassa rooftop by former students. The government has launched a nationwide effort to register madrassas. That represents "barely the tip of the iceberg," says Munizae Bano, executive director of Sahil, the organization that scours the newspapers and works against sexual abuse of minors. (Photo: AP)The fear of clerics and the militant religious organizations that sometimes support them came through clearly. Their elderly uncle, who looks near tears, covers his face and tries not to look in the boy’s direction. "Leave. Two women with their heads covered hurry past, stopping briefly to warn a young Pakistani woman, "Don’t bring your children to that madrassa."There are thousands of incidences of sexual abuse in the madrassas," he says. (Photo: AP)The cleric lifted the boy’s long tunic-style shirt over his head, and then pulled down his baggy pants. He also doesn’t want his name used because he too has survived suicide bombings due to his stance on militants."This is not a small thing here in Pakistan — I am scared of them and what they can do," the official says.A tally of cases reported in newspapers over the past 10 years of sexual abuse by maulvis or clerics and other religious officials came to 359."This is one of those things, you know, which everybody knows is going on and happening, but evidence is very scarce," he says.The AP is not naming the children because they are victims of sexual abuse."Poor people are afraid, so they don’t say anything," Hussain says."The AP found hundreds of cases of sexual abuse by clerics reported in the past decade, and officials suspect there are many more within a far-reaching system that teaches at least 2 million children in Pakistan."The family took money to not speak about it," says Rana Mohammed Jamal, an elderly neighbor."The maulvi was sitting in the chair like he was the boss, and I was told to stay standing," he says. (Photo: AP)Parveen reaches over and grabs her son, pulling him toward her, cradling his head in her lap. "He told me if I told anyone, my brother, my family, he would kill all my family and he would kill me. Honor killings now carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison, but clerics in sexual abuse cases can still be forgiven.There are between 2,000 and 3,000 unregistered madrasses, Naeem says, which makes central oversight even harder.The Interior Ministry, which oversees madrassas, refused repeated written and telephone requests for an interview. One senior official in a ministry tasked with registering these cases says many madrassas are "infested" with sexual abuse.Yet the family settled the case out of court. After persistent knocking, a blind maulvi, Mohammed Nadeem, led by a young student, agrees to speak. The girl started working two years ago, at 7, and her only schooling was in the Quran.In 2004, a Pakistani official disclosed more than 500 complaints of sexual assaults against young boys in madrassas. Mulk has police protection because of death threats from militants outraged by his defense of a Christian woman sentenced to death for insulting Islam."This is particularly true in Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, where more than 60 percent of its 200 million people live. She screamed."We need witnesses, evidence," says Sajjad Mohammed Khan, Vehari’s deputy superintendent of police for organized crime.Blood MoneyVictims and their families can choose to "forgive" an assailant because Pakistan’s legal system is a mix of British Common Law and Islamic Shariah law."Everyone is so afraid of the mullahs today," he says. They say they have consulted a local Islamic scholar about the rape allegations, and that the madrassa has not come to their attention previously for any wrongdoing.The "keepers" of madrassas are also notoriously reluctant to accept government oversight or embrace reforms, according to I.The brother, who would only give his first name as Maqsood, looks anguished. He has since refused to talk, and there have been no significant arrests or prosecutions. Once, the cleric even swore on the Quran that he would stop, but still returned. He looks over at his mother.Kausar Parveen struggles through tears as she remembers the blood-soaked pants of her 9-year-old son, raped by a religious cleric.. This time, a local activist group known as Roshan Pakistan, or Bright Pakistan, persuaded the family of the young girl to resist." Yousaf says the reform and control of madrassas is the job of the interior ministry. He refused to say how much money they got, but neighbors say it was around $800.The case of Parveen’s son was one of at least three within a month in the towns of Kehrore Pakka and Rajanpur in Punjab province’s deep south, according to police reports. They operate without scrutiny, ignored by the authorities, say residents living nearby.We are poor people.The family of a boy who says he was repeatedly assaulted sexually by a cleric in a Punjab madrassa talks about their tussle with police.Poor people know this, so they don’t even go to the police. Maybe 10 or 11, he says. Even Pakistan’s own Punjab provincial anti-corruption department in a 2014 report listed the Punjab police as the province’s most corrupt department. "We are being pressured to compromise.. He is surrounded by two dozen villagers and relatives, all men, all angry.A similar legal provision was changed last year to prevent forgiveness of "honor" killings, where victims are murdered because they are thought to have brought shame on their families. None of the families CNC spring forming machine accepted Sahil’s offer of legal assistance.Sahil, the organization that scours newspapers for cases of sexual assault, offers families legal aid to pursue such cases. Among the weapons they use to frighten their critics is a controversial blasphemy law that carries a death penalty in the case of a conviction. He adds that the power of the people who run the madrassas has increased over the years..In the end, the mother "forgave" the cleric and accepted $300, according to police. But relatives and neighbors say the family was hounded by religious militants to drop the charges and take money. Police don’t help the poor.The madrassa where Maqsood’s brother went, with more than 250 students, has a reputation in the neighborhood for abuse. Last year, Sahil found 56 cases of sexual assault involving religious clerics."He says he begged the cleric to leave him alone. A half dozen members of the radical Sunni militant organization Sipah-e-Sahabah were there to support the teacher.

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