Uzma’s death should be that pivotal moment when things change. Mubashir Bhutta Advocate

Uzma’s death should be that pivotal moment when things change. Mubashir Bhutta Advocate, chairman of MBHRT Mubashir Bhutta Human Rights Trust and Chairman of Human Rights Committee of Pakistan shows serious concern on this barbarian act and demand the government to take serious and practical efforts to eliminate human rights violations and  so also protect the family of victim The story that unfolded was so dark it not only enraged and grieved people across Pakistan, it also started a much-needed discussion on the topic that despite being very important and frequently in news is apparently of so little importance to most people embroiled in their diurnal battles, it has never really received the importance it deserves. Rampant is violence on children and teenagers employed in domestic service, titled maids and servants in an age where political correctness has forced people to cloak their blatant condensation for the have-nots in words that flimsily hide the stark lines that divide society in binaries of who is to be treated well, and who is to treated worse than an animal. The cruelty that takes place in plain sight, the ruthlessness that is so commonplace it is almost invisible, the apathy that is so obvious it is as if lit by garish neon lights.

In a society where to keep underage children as domestic help is against the law but is still a common practice, the outrage over Uzma’s death should be that pivotal moment when things change. But how do you teach someone to not be cruel to a child whose familial destitution compelling her or him to say a hurried goodbye to a childhood unlived force her or him into a life of labour that despite being inside a house is not better than that of a life being wasted in a prison for hardened criminals?

in the last week of January 2019, Pakistan saw images of the dead body of a teenager who worked as domestic help in a house in Allama Iqbal Town, Lahore. The outrage was tremendous, and because of the intensive media coverage of the body of a girl, almost a child, found in a drain, a case clearly of torture and manslaughter, the quick investigation led to the arrest of one perpetrator and her two accomplices.