Sex crime, corruption plaguing Muslim world, says Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan

Corruption and sex crimes are the two main evils confronting the Muslim world, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said, calling on the need to “save the Muslim youth from being inundated with obscenity and pornographic material available on the internet”.

The prime minister made these comments during an interactive dialogue on ‘Riyasat-i-Madina: Islam, Society and Ethical Revival’ with top Muslim scholars from the world on Sunday, which was organised by the recently set up National Rehmatul-lil-Aalameen Authority (NRAA).

Khan in October formed the NRAA for researching how best to disseminate lessons from the life of the Prophet to the masses.

“There are two sorts of crimes in the society, one is corruption and the other is sex crime. Sex crime has risen sharply in our society, i.e. rape and child abuse and only one per cent of this is reported,” Khan said.

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“The other 99 per cent, I believe, society has to fight it. The same is the case with corruption… Society has to make corruption unacceptable. Unfortunately, when you have leadership which is corrupt over time, they make corruption acceptable,” the prime minister said, apparently taking a dig at his predecessor Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

The Dawn newspaper reported that while seeking viewpoints of the international scholars, Khan hinted that he would be holding similar dialogues with renowned scholars in the future as well.

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Meanwhile, delivering another address on Monday, Khan stressed the importance of making Pakistan economically strong and self-reliant and said that the nationalisation process adopted in the 1960s severely undermined the country’s progress.

He also claimed that its all-weather ally China was ready to help Pakistan and improve the latter’s economy.

“But our problem is that we are still not ready for it,” Khan added.

“By exporting only onion and vegetables, we cannot progress as industrial growth is must to improve the economy. Wealth creation of a country is impossible without industrial development while increasing exports supplement such efforts,” Khan said during an event of Pak-China Business Investment Forum in Islamabad.

(With inputs from agencies)