When power protects predators

Pakistani children are hunted everywhere, every single day in plain sight while those tasked with their protection shield the predators lurking in classrooms, madrassas, living rooms, neighborhoods, workplaces and now on the screens glowing in every home. These monsters aren't hiding; they're right there (wolves in sheep's clothing) cloaked in respect and trust. And the children — our children — are silenced and forced to carry the heavy yoke of trauma that should weigh on the state, society, all of us.

Recent numbers from the interior ministry should make Islamabad — the claimed showcase of power, order, governance and security — hang its head in shame. Between 2021 and June 2025, it recorded 567 cases of sexual abuse. Two hundred of those victims were children: 107 girls and 93 boys. The ministry boasts of 222 take-ins. But only 12, yes only 12, have been convicted; 163 mired in court delays; 15 already freed to prey again; and 26 still on the loose, very probably smiling somewhere at the system's competence. That's not justice! That's abandonment dressed up as process. And that's the justice system at work - if you can even call it that!

If this is the putrescence in Islamabad — right under the very nose of parliament, ministries, police, courts — imagine the unmentionable atrocities being committed in rural areas and small towns. And what hope do the children of Kasur, Thar or Swat really have if there is no sanctuary found in the federal capital. Even Sahil's reports — invaluable though they may be — only catch a glimpse of the barbarity. The real story is much uglier, much darker — like a sewer running under a gilded hall — and everybody knows it.

But when families do speak, the system makes sure to squeeze out every drop of repentance from them. Reporting hurls them into a system that humiliates them time and again. Social shame silences them, threats and intimidation besiege them, poverty ensnares them, police dismissal re-traumatises them and courts condemn them to years of ordeal. And if the child belongs to a well-connected family, the power machine perks up like a dog at the dinner table — headlines blare, officials swarm, ministers perform, commissions hastily constituted. Is a child's value in Pakistan privy only to the power of his family? Who you know rather than what you know?

We're six years past the Zainab Alert, a law brandished like a fire extinguisher but never pulled off the wall. Laws without enforcement are theatre and our rulers love theatre! Laws — gleaming pieces of paper — keep coming, ceremonies keep recurring and files keep piling up. Meanwhile, the victims keep mounting too.

I never waste space offering solutions here. Not because there aren't any, but because the rulers already know them. They've got experts, advisors, consultants, commissions, bloated bureaucracies and endless junkets abroad. They can copy proven models from other countries in a heartbeat. The problem isn't a lack of knowledge. Rather a lack of will. A lack of care. A lack of humanity!

Child sexual abuse is not just the most underreported crime in Pakistan it is the most systematically ignored crime. And with every foot-dragging, with every free pass, with every shrug of power sitting comfortably in its seat, the state has chosen predators over kids.

Until powerful men decide that children are more worthy of safety than their own comfort, this impunity cycle will go on and the state — yes, with its cosmetic commissions and paper promises — will feign progress. Shamefully pathetic! No?