Pakistan, Feb. 19 -- Home should be a place of warmth and safety for children, and people in home a source of warmth and love. Yet for many like Iqra, it is a battlefield where childhood is robbed. The story of the Rawalpindi-based minor girl, covered by the local and international media, is painfully reminiscent of the tragic characters in English fiction-orphans in Dickens' London, starving and shivering in alleyways, longing for kindness but met with cruelty. In moden times, Iqra's crime turns out to be a piece of chocolate. Her punishment? Death. Coldblooded murder.

At just 13, Iqra had already seen more hardship than most. She was sold into labour at eight by her parents, She scrubbed floors and served meals while children of the ho...