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Honor killings now carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison, but clerics in ***ual abuse cases can still be forgiven. Two women with their heads covered hurry past, stopping briefly to warn a young Pakistani woman, "Don’t bring your children to that madrassa. Their elderly uncle, who looks near tears, covers his face and tries not to look in the boy’s direction. "Police help the mullah.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."Local police deny charges that they favored the cleric or intimidated the family.The family of a boy who says he was repeatedly assaulted ***ually by a cleric in a Punjab madrassa talks about their tussle with police.Her uncle, Mohammed Azam, points across a field to the madrassa, surrounded by a high wall.There are between 2,000 and 3,000 unregistered madrasses, Naeem says, which makes central oversight even harder. And the families involved are often poor and powerless.Police Help the Mullah The fear that surrounds ***ual abuse by clerics means that justice is rare.Poor people know this, so they don’t even go to the police. "Did he hurt you when he touched you?" ″Yes," he whispers."I am married," he said.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. I was afraid," he says.The madrassa where Maqsood’s brother went, with more than 250 students, has a reputation in the neighborhood for abuse."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. "We are being pressured to compromise. The students they teach are often among the country’s poorest, who receive food and an education for free. Even Pakistan’s own Punjab provincial anti-corruption department in a 2014 report listed the Punjab police as the province’s most corrupt department. Yet he swore his innocence in court."This is one of those things, you know, which everybody knows is going on and happening, but evidence is very scarce," he says.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. 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 Interior Ministry, which oversees madrassas, refused repeated written and telephone requests for an interview. He has since refused to talk, and there have been no significant arrests or prosecutions.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. And the third was of a 10-year-old boy sodomized by the madrassa principal when he brought him his meal. (Photo: AP)Parveen reaches over and grabs her son, pulling him toward her, cradling his head in her lap.A tally of cases reported in newspapers over the past 10 years of ***ual abuse by maulvis or clerics and other religious officials came to 359. The cleric threatened to kill the boy if he told. 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."That’s a very dangerous topic," he says." Yousaf says the reform and control of madrassas is the job of the interior ministry. The government has launched a nationwide effort to register madrassas. Parveen’s son, for example, went to an unregistered madrassa."I didn’t move. 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.The boy isn’t sure of his age."Did he touch you?′ He nods. None of the families accepted Sahil’s offer of legal assistance.The boy says another student at his seminary was assaulted by the same cleric."Did he rape you?" He buries his face in his scarf and nods yes.Blood MoneyVictims and their families can choose to "forgive" an China Wood Beads Manufacturers assailant because Pakistan’s legal system is a mix of British Common Law and Islamic Shariah law.