Newspapers' Treatment of Child Abuse Cases in Lahore

Abstract

According to research, the careless use of words in news coverage on child abuse has been brought to light. It was discovered that the language used in the crime story has a significant impact on reducing the severity of the crime and, as a result, has a substantial impact on how the readers perceive the nature of such crimes. The purpose of this research was to conduct a detailed investigation on how incidences of child abuse are reported in Pakistani media. Its primary emphasis is on understanding how news articles about child abuse are framed and promoted in the media. The reports of child sexual abuse that appeared in four daily newspapers (two English and two Urdu) between January 2016 and January 2018 were studied for the frames and language used to convey the events. A summary of the results was presented in the form of graphs and tables. To get an accurate count, we surveyed a total of 2718 people across both English-language and Urdu-language newspapers. According to this study, a total of 706 cases of child sexual abuse were reported in Lahore during the years (2016-2010) and 355 cases of CSA (Child Sexual Abuse) were reported in Lahore during the years (2010-2010). How the newspapers covered the news about child abuse did and does have a sound impact in underlining the importance of this matter on both the governmental and public scale. Sensitized coverage is problematic because it tends to portray child abuse more as a political issue than as a grim reality, affecting everyone across society. It is time to strictly implement anti-child abuse laws so that crimes against children could be effectively prevented.