‘In Pakistan, 12 children sexually abused per day in first half of 2022’

A total of 2,211 cases of child abuse were reported across the country in the first six months of 2022, according to a report issued by NGO Sahil on Thursday.

The research titled “Sahil’s Six Months Cruel Numbers Report” highlighted a harrowing situation as 12 children were subjected to sexual abuse on average per day, in comparison to 10 children per day in the last year’s January-June 2021 report.

The major crime categories included child sexual abuse (CSA), abduction, missing children, and child marriages.

As many as 1,170 cases of child sexual abuse, 803 cases of abduction, 212 cases of missing children, and 26 cases of child marriages were reported across the country from January-June this year.

The report showed that out of the total reported cases, 1,207 (55%) of victims were girls and 1,004 (45%) were boys.

“This year in the first six months 567 boys were become victimised by crimes of sodomy/gang sodomy/attempt of sodomy/murder/pornography and abduction. 551 girls were victimised by crimes of rape/gang rape/attempt of rape/murder/pornography and abduction, as per the report.

In the first half of the current year, 59 cases of pornography and 17 cases of incest were reported.

The data revealed that children from the age group 6-15 are most vulnerable to abuse while 715 children from the age bracket of 11-15 years and 401 children from the age brackets of 6-10 were abused from January-June 2022.

The statistics highlighted that the abuser involved in 47 per cent of the total cases were acquaintances, 18% strangers while in 9 per cent of cases acquaintances along with strangers committed crimes against children.

“In 1,050 cases were acquaintances, 409 cases strangers, 39 cases relatives, 32 cases female abettors, 50 cases religious/school teachers and in 63 cases neighbours were involved,” the report further stated.

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In the first six months of 2022, 71 per cent of the total cases were reported from Punjab and 9 per cent from the federal capital.

The rest of the cases were reported from other provinces including 15 per cent cases from Sindh, three per cent cases from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and 2 per cent cases from Balochistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B).

Out of the total reported cases, 48% were from rural areas and 52% cases were reported from urban areas.

The case registration status showed that out of the total reported cases of child abuse, 89 per cent of cases were registered with the police.

In 26 cases, the complaint was either not registered with the police or the police refused to register the case, the research showed.

The NGO said it collected the data from 81 different national, local and regional newspapers of all four provinces including Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), AJK and G-B.