When Will Childhood Be Safe?

The true measure of a society is not its skyscrapers, motorways, economic statistics or political slogans. It is revealed by something much simpler: how safe its children are. If a child cannot feel safe at home, in the neighbourhood, at a madrassa, at school or even on the street, then all our claims of progress deserve to be questioned.

The growing number of cases of child abuse in Pakistan is not merely a matter of crime statistics. It reflects our collective indifference, weak institutions and a social culture that too often chooses silence over justice. Behind every reported case is a childhood that has been stolen, a family that has been shattered and an innocent mind carrying wounds that may never fully heal.

According to the material available for this article, 1,914 cases of child abuse were reported across Pakistan during the first six months of 2026. Meanwhile, Sahil’s report recorded 3,630 cases of child abuse across the country in 2025, an increase of eight per cent over 2024. These figures were compiled from reports published in 81 newspapers across the four provinces, Islamabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. According to the report, more than nine children were subjected to some form of abuse every day in 2025. But is this the complete picture? Probably not.

These figures represent only the cases that were reported. Countless incidents never reach the police or the courts because of fear, social stigma, family pressure, financial difficulties and the long, exhausting process of seeking justice. The reported numbers, therefore, should not be mistaken for the full scale of the problem. There is also a widespread assumption that children are mainly at risk from strangers. The reality is far more complicated. Long-term analyses of child abuse cases have repeatedly shown that a significant number of incidents involve people known to the child or the family. This is an uncomfortable truth, but one that parents must acknowledge.

Teaching children simply to avoid strangers is no longer enough. They must also be taught that if a relative, teacher, neighbour, family acquaintance or influential person makes them uncomfortable or pressures them into doing something they do not want to do, they have the right to speak up. They should know that they can tell their parents or another trusted adult without fear of being blamed or punished. Such education is not about frightening children. It is about giving them confidence.Perhaps the most painful aspect of this crisis is that danger sometimes comes from the very place that should be a child’s safest refuge. Home is a child’s first shelter. The family environment is supposed to provide love, security and protection. But if that space becomes unsafe, where does a child go?

Parents also need to pay close attention to sudden and unexplained changes in a child’s behaviour. Fear of a particular person, refusing to go to school, unusual silence, anger, withdrawal or a sudden change in behaviour may sometimes be warning signs. Not every behavioural change means that a child has been abused, but ignoring every unusual change is certainly not wise. Pakistan does not lack laws relating to child protection. The Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act 2020, the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018 and various provincial laws and policies provide a legal framework for protecting children. The real problem, however, is not the absence of laws. It is the failure to translate those laws into effective action.

During a hearing at the Islamabad High Court in June 2026 concerning the implementation of the Zainab Alert law, the court was informed that some important provisions, including the practical operation of an immediate alert mechanism for missing children, had yet to be implemented as intended. The court was also told that 562 criminal cases relating to missing children and child abuse had been registered in Islamabad between 2022 and 2025. These figures raise a fundamental question: how seriously do we monitor the implementation of laws after passing them?

The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights also expressed concern in February 2026 over the performance of government institutions responsible for child protection and the lack of coordination between departments. It pointed out that several policies appeared to remain largely confined to official documents. We also need to understand that registering an FIR is not justice. It is merely the beginning of the process.

If a child is abused, a case is registered and the accused is arrested, but the trial continues for years, witnesses come under pressure, evidence becomes weaker and the family eventually loses hope, then where is the justice despite the existence of laws? Cases involving children require a particularly sensitive approach to investigation and prosecution. Making a child repeatedly recount a traumatic incident, subjecting them to unnecessary questioning or taking their statement in an intimidating environment can deepen the trauma.

Every district should therefore have properly trained child protection units where police officers, prosecutors, social workers and psychologists can work together. Specially trained investigators and prosecutors should deal with child abuse cases, while unnecessary delays in trials must be eliminated.

We teach our children mathematics, science, English and computers. But do we teach them what to do if someone touches them inappropriately? Do they know that they have the right to say no? Do they understand that they are not obliged to obey an adult when something is wrong? Do they know whom to approach if someone threatens or intimidates them? Age-appropriate child safety education is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity.

The purpose of such education should not be to frighten children but to give them a basic understanding of personal boundaries, appropriate and inappropriate touch, online risks and ways of seeking help. Parents and teachers also need training because children often communicate distress through changes in behaviour rather than directly asking for help. The dangers facing children today are not confined to streets, schools and neighbourhoods. Mobile phones and the internet have created another world in which children can face online gaming risks, fake identities, manipulation, blackmail, deceptive relationships and inappropriate content. Many of these dangers remain invisible to parents.

Online safety must therefore become a central part of child protection policy. Parents need to find a sensible balance between monitoring their children’s online activity and respecting their privacy. At the same time, state institutions must develop modern investigative capabilities to tackle online child exploitation. We often blame the government for every social problem and consider ourselves absolved of responsibility. Child protection, however, is not the responsibility of the state alone.

If people in a neighbourhood know that a child is being abused but remain silent because it is supposedly a “family matter”; if a family silences a child for fear of social disgrace; if an influential person tries to protect an accused individual; or if society creates a few days of outrage on social media and then moves on, we all become part of the problem. Protecting a child’s honour does not mean hiding a crime. True honour lies in ensuring that the child receives justice and that the perpetrator is held accountable under the law. We must change a mindset in which fear of family “reputation” becomes more important than a child’s future.

Whether it is the 3,630 reported cases in 2025 or the 1,914 cases reported during the first six months of 2026, behind every number is a human being. A child is not a case number. A child is someone’s son or daughter, someone’s hope, someone’s brother or sister, the joy of a home and, above all, a citizen of the state that has a responsibility to protect them.

Available data from previous years has also shown that children between the ages of 11 and 15 remain particularly vulnerable, although younger children are also among those affected. This means that the answer cannot simply be harsher punishment. Punishment is necessary, but it must go hand in hand with prevention, awareness, immediate reporting, professional investigation, speedy justice, psychological support and assistance for affected families.

Pakistan now needs a coordinated national child protection mechanism in which the federal and provincial governments work together rather than operate in isolation. Every district should have an effective child protection unit, trained police officers, specialised prosecutors, child-friendly courts, psychological support services and a safe mechanism for reporting abuse. Systems such as the Zainab Alert mechanism must not remain confined to websites, applications or government notifications. They must become genuinely responsive systems capable of mobilising within minutes and hours when a child goes missing, rather than after days or weeks.

Most importantly, we need to recognise that children are not merely the citizens of tomorrow. They are citizens today, and their rights matter today. A child’s childhood cannot be returned. No court can completely erase the fear of what has happened. No law can simply remove a wound from a child’s heart. But a sensitive state, a responsible society and an effective system can certainly ensure that what happened to one child is not repeated with another. Laws matter only when their protection reaches the child. Otherwise, even the strongest law written in a statute book remains little more than words for a vulnerable child. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of our society is that we have taught children to remain silent when we should have taught them to speak, to complain and to demand their right to be safe.

It is time to stop treating a child’s silence as consent, fear as stubbornness and a complaint as a family matter. It is time to take child protection out of official files and bring it into homes, schools, communities and institutions. Because a society in which children are not safe has no truly safe future.