Islamabad, Aug 7 (IANS) As many as 1,914 incidents of child abuse were reported in Pakistan in the first six months of 2026, according to the latest report released by child protection NGO Sahil. The reported cases include 49 infants who were found abandoned on the road. As many as 1,015 cases of child sexual abuse, 558 cases of kidnapping, 101 cases of missing children, 98 cases of pornography following sexual abuse and 35 cases of child marriages were reported in Pakistan from January to June, Asia News Network (ANN) reported.
The report is based on data gathered from newspapers of four provinces of Pakistan – Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, and Sindh as well as Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan (PoGB). Among the total reported cases of child abuse in Pakistan, 58 per cent of victims were girls.
Among the victims, 598 children were aged between 11-15 years, 356 were aged between 16-18 years, 329 belonged to the age group of six to 10 years and 95 victims were aged between zero to five years, Asia News Network reported. The age of victims in 487 cases was not mentioned in the report.
The perpetrators in 43 per cent of the reported cases were acquaintances, while the abusers in 34 per cent of cases were strangers in Pakistan. As many as 57 per cent of cases were reported in urban areas while 43 per cent were reported in rural areas of Pakistan, Asia News Network reported.
Earlier in June, a three-year-old girl was found dead inside a sack near her home after she was sexually assaulted and killed in the Quaidabad area of Malir district in Pakistan’s Karachi, local media reported.
The victim, identified as ‘K’, went missing while playing outside her house. Her father said that the family searched for her in the neighbourhood, after which they ultimately found her body in a sack on the street near their residence.
Police Surgeon Dr Summaiya said that the girl was sexually assaulted and mentioned that the exact cause of her death would be determined upon receipt of the chemical examination report, Pakistani daily The Express Tribune reported. Police sources suggested that the sexual assault and murder likely happened near the victim’s residence.
–IANS
akl/as
