Widespread Physical and Sexual Abuse in Madrassas

From the Associated Press:

The accounts are disturbing: beatings, forced sex and imprisonment with shackles and leg irons. Abuse accusations from hundreds of children sent to study at Islamic schools are prompting growing calls from parents and rights groups for a full-scale investigation.

But officials have moved slowly and cautiously in probing the charges of mistreatment in Quranic schools, or madrassas ? pointing to a paradox across much of the Muslim world. It?s often easier to tackle Islamic militants than to confront the cultural taboo on publicly airing alleged sex crimes and challenging influential clerics.

Still, if Islamic institutions ever face a reckoning over sexual abuse ? such as the Roman Catholic upheavals in recent years ? it could begin in Pakistan where institutions already are under unprecedented scrutiny by anti-terrorism agents.

?We are forcing people to look this problem in the eye,? said Zia Ahmed Awan, whose group Madadgaar, or Helper, compiles reports of sexual abuse of children in Pakistan. ?It is not anti-Muslim. It is not anti-cleric. We are looking out for the most vulnerable in society.?

Last year, a Pakistani official stunned his nation by officially disclosing more than 500 complaints of sexual assaults against young boys studying in madrassas.

The quote highlighted above in bold is bizarre--if anyone can cite news of a madrassa confronting an "Islamic militant," I would be quite surprised. There are almost no examples of militants being confronted anywhere in the Muslim world for obvious reasons. In the following story, not only was a boy horribly disfigured, but his father is now in hiding for standing up to a depraved imam:

Acid attack on boy who 'refused sex with Muslim cleric'

On his hospital bed last week, 16-year-old Abid Tanoli sat listless and alone, half of his body covered by burns that all but destroyed both his eyes and left his face horribly disfigured.