The death of 18-month-old Aizal in Karachi after her severe sexual assault has shocked Pakistan. Police reports indicate that a teenage relative took the child from the house, after which she was returned in critical condition and later died.
Five-year-old Ayat Noor, reported missing from Pathan Colony in Haripur on August 10, 2026, was recovered from a well where her body was dumped after being sexually assaulted.
Every few weeks, Pakistan mourns yet another brutality against some innocent child who has been brutally raped or murdered, and in most cases both. Pakistan’s civil society expresses rage, lights candles, demands justice and then moves on until the next tragedy. This outrage in Pakistan however is episodic and has failed to install a comprehensive child protection system focused on prevention, accountability, and survivor rehabilitation
New data released by child‑rights NGO ‘Sahil,’ reveals that on an average more than ten cases of child abuse take place every single day in Pakistan. in the first six months of 2026 alone 1,914 cases of child abuse were reported, of which 1,015 involved child sexual abuse, 558 abduction, 101 missing children, 35 child marriages, and 98 cases of pornography linked to sexual abuse. Girls accounted for 58 percent of victims, while boys made up 59 percent of pornography‑linked cases. Children aged 11 to 15 formed the largest group of victims, followed by those aged 16 to 18 and 6 to 10. In 487 cases, the child’s age was not even reported.
Official statistics report thousands of child abuse cases annually, but these figures capture only a fraction of the reality. Abuse remains widely underreported due to stigma, fear of retaliation, and a lack of trust in state institutions. This invisibility weakens evidence-based policymaking and allows systemic neglect to continue. Sahil’s figures, drawn only from cases that reached the press, represent a fraction of the violence occurring across the country. Sahil recorded 1,956 cases in the same period last year, suggesting that the crisis is not improving. Punjab alone accounts for 80 percent of reported cases, and all ten districts identified as most vulnerable fall within the province.
Case after case exposes the brutal reality of what it means to be a child in Pakistan. Even as police and family frantically searched for five-year-old Ayat Noor, three children reportedly disappeared from different parts of Haripur within one week. On August 5, a teenage boy in Karachi was arrested for allegedly raping and murdering a minor girl in Qayyumabad. In Rawalpindi, a five‑year‑old girl vanished in the early hours of August 6, triggering frantic searches. In Sukkur, a 13‑year‑old schoolgirl was abducted from Khanpur Mahar in Ghotki. On July 15, the prime suspect in the rape and murder of six‑year‑old boy Wali confessed before a judicial magistrate. He admitted to killing the child, stuffing the body into a gunny bag, hiding it in his house, and later, fearing arrest, throwing it into an empty plot. In Shangla, eleven‑year‑old Zubair was sexually assaulted and filmed by his cousins. Terrified and ashamed, he told no one until the video surfaced and villagers recognised him. These stories are devastating, but they are also part of a larger pattern that Pakistan continues to ignore.
On January 7, 2025 seven-year-old Mohammed Sarim, who had gone to a madrassah for lessons near his North Karachi home, went missing. His father frantically searched playgrounds, neighbours’ homes, and the madrassah itself. When he finally reached the police station, officers told him to return with a typed application. It took an hour to obtain the printout, and when he returned, the police forgot about it. A first information report was finally registered nine hours after the child disappeared.
Child protection lawyers emphasise that the period between disappearance and FIR registration is critical. Abusers, they note, often abandon the child if police arrive quickly. Delay increases vulnerability. Eleven days later, Sarim’s body was found floating in an underground water tank in his apartment complex, a tank the police had checked on the day he went missing.
Following the murder of Zainab Ansari, the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act (ZARRA) 2020 was passed under which police are required to register an FIR within two hours of a child being reported missing. But the rules necessary to operationalise the law, coordination protocols, digital systems, inter‑agency networks, have never been framed. Police officers often do not know the repercussions of failing to comply.
But laws like the Zainab Alert were built and publicised around female victims, while boy victims remain an afterthought in both policy language and public campaigning.
In Pakistan, child sexual abuse is not treated as a gender-neutral crime. It is culturally coded as something that happens to girls. The Kasur scandal of 2015 exposed just how many boys were being targeted and how little the state was prepared to do about it. Yet more than a decade later, the numbers have not improved. What has stayed constant is a deeper failure that the Kasur case only made visible: Pakistan still does not know how to talk about, legislate for, or protect its boy victims.
Justice Athar Minallah’s 2019 Islamabad High Court ruling mandated that child abuse cases be investigated by officers of assistant superintendent of police (ASP) rank or above. Yet this too remains largely unimplemented. As child protection experts repeatedly note, the police continue to rely on outdated investigative methods and remain unaware of basic laws. The state responds only when a case garners media attention; otherwise, silence prevails.
Dr. Samina Karim, associate professor at the University of Bradford, has spent two years leading a study on child protection in Pakistan. Her team interviewed 111 child abuse victims and key professionals, police officers, legal advocates, teachers, doctors, to assess the effectiveness of existing measures. Her conclusion is stark: despite progressive legislation, enforcement remains weak due to systemic challenges. Pakistan is a signatory to UN conventions on child protection, has laws, case precedents, and institutions. Yet children remain unsafe because the state does not implement the laws it already has.
The data also reveals who the abusers are. In 43 percent of cases, the perpetrator was an acquaintance. In 45 percent, the abuse occurred in the victim’s own home. According to Sahil, kidnapping is among the top crimes leading to sexual abuse, followed by rape and sodomy. Children between five and fifteen are at highest risk of sexual abuse and pornography, most of them boys. These patterns show that danger often comes from within families and communities, not from strangers.
Pakistan’s legal reforms have focused largely on increasing punishments because harsher penalties satisfy public anger, this does little to improve investigations or protect survivors. Real reform requires investment in professional capacity
Pakistan’s conviction rate in child sexual abuse cases remains extremely low, encouraging offenders to continue committing such crimes. Many perpetrators are involved in multiple offenses before being reported in a single case, after which investigators often recover evidence from their mobile phones revealing abuse of numerous other victims. However, prolonged court proceedings and weak follow-up results in very few convictions. This low accountability encourages offenders and contributes to the continued rise in such incidents.
Beyond the justice system, social and economic conditions deepen children’s vulnerability. Poverty, child labour, early marriage, and unsafe urban environments create fertile grounds for abuse and exploitation.
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