By Our Correspondent
LAHORE: A latest report released by the Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO) has revealed a disturbing surge in violence against children (VAC) in Pakistan, with 7,608 reported cases in 2024—an average of 21 incidents per day.
Read also: SSDO partners with Child Protection Bureau to combat child trafficking, sexual and physical abuse.
The report highlights a deep-rooted child protection crisis and exposes critical failures in the legal system, with conviction rates for most categories of abuse remaining under 1%. These alarming findings come from SSDO’s latest publication, Mapping Study on Violence Against Children in Pakistan 2024, which draws on data obtained from provincial police departments through Right to Information (RTI) laws.
The cases reported span a range of violence including physical and sexual abuse, kidnapping, child trafficking, child marriage, and child labour. Of the total cases, 2,954 reported sexual abuse, 2,437 reported kidnapping, 895 were related to child labour, 683 were physical abuse cases, 586 were incidents of child trafficking, and 53 were cases of child marriage.
While child trafficking and child labour cases saw relatively higher conviction rates of 45% and 37% respectively, the vast majority of cases—including sexual abuse, kidnapping, and child marriage—saw negligible or no convictions, with child marriage cases resulting in zero convictions nationwide.
This conviction needs to be verified because as per Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act 2018, the punishment in case of child trafficking is one million rupees fine and 10 years of imprisonment but in the most of the cases the judiciary doesn’t give the punishments as per PTPA and release the accused by putting penalties of few thousand rupees
Punjab reported the highest number of child abuse cases at 6,083, including 2,506 incidents of sexual abuse and 2,189 kidnappings, but only 28 and 4 convictions respectively.
Physical abuse cases numbered 455 in the province, with only 7 convictions. Child trafficking accounted for 457 cases, with 267 resulting in convictions, and 450 cases of child labour led to 66 convictions. However, none of the 26 child marriage cases reported in Punjab led to any convictions.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa followed with 1,102 cases, including 208 physical abuse cases and 366 sexual abuse cases, yet none of these resulted in convictions. The province reported 93 kidnapping cases, six child trafficking cases, three cases of child marriage, and 426 child labour cases, with convictions occurring only in the child labour category, totalling 267.
Sindh recorded 354 cases in total, including 19 cases each of physical and sexual abuse, 152 kidnappings, 121 trafficking cases, and 24 cases of child marriage—none of which resulted in a single conviction.
In Balochistan, 69 cases were reported, including one of physical abuse, 63 sexual abuse cases, and 43 kidnappings. The province reported just two convictions each for sexual abuse and kidnapping, with no convictions for the remaining categories.
Syed Kausar Abbas, Executive Director of Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO) said that the data was collected by using Right of Access to Information laws of the respective provinces from the police departments. He emphasized that the reported numbers represent only the visible tip of a much larger problem, with many cases going unreported.
He acknowledged Punjab’s relatively higher reporting but urged all provinces to adopt consistent and transparent mechanisms for documenting and responding to child abuse. Abbas called the conviction rates “unacceptably low” and pushed for urgent structural reforms, including the creation of specialized child courts to handle VAC cases with the urgency and sensitivity they require.
He also stressed the need to properly categorize all child labour and beggary-related cases under the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act (PTPA) 2018. The curriculum needs to improved in educational institutions for children to educate them about the good touch, bad touch and life skilled based education.
“Our children are being failed not just by abusers, but by the very systems meant to protect them,” Abbas stated. “Without immediate reforms, we risk condemning yet another generation to cycles of trauma, injustice, and neglect.”
