A number one minority rights organisation on Thursday expressed grave concern over a newly launched nationwide factsheet documenting 5,097 circumstances of violence in opposition to youngsters (VAC) throughout Pakistan within the first six months of 2025.
In accordance with the Voice of Pakistan Minority (VOPM), the doc doesn’t simply current numbers — it exposes a system that repeatedly fails to see, shield and ship justice for its youngest residents and sends a chilling reminder of how unsafe childhood stays in Pakistan.
The rights physique acknowledged that the factsheet relies on information obtained by means of Proper to Info (RTI) requests to police departments in Pakistan’s provinces–Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan –and the federal capital Islamabad. It documented 9 main types of abuse, together with bodily abuse, sexual abuse, baby pornography, homicide or murder, kidnapping, baby marriage, baby labour, baby beggary and trafficking.
“But even this alarming image is incomplete. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa didn’t present information, leaving a significant hole within the nationwide evaluation. This absence is not only a technical flaw; it symbolises a broader failure to deal with violence in opposition to youngsters as a precedence that should be mapped, measured and tackled with urgency,” the VOPM acknowledged.
As per the findings, Punjab recorded the very best variety of child-related crimes, whereas Sindh confirmed significantly excessive numbers of sexual abuse, kidnapping and baby labour, exposing entrenched prison networks and the vulnerability of youngsters in city and peri-urban slums.
“On paper, Balochistan’s numbers look smaller. In actuality, the province could also be one of the harmful locations for youngsters, with underreporting pushed by weak policing, huge distances, conservative social norms and concern of talking out,” the VOPM talked about.
“Islamabad presents a extra city profile: higher reporting of kid pornography, sexual violence and kidnapping, however fewer circumstances of kid labour or beggary. These tendencies recommend that the place programs exist to file sure crimes, extra of them seem — not essentially as a result of different types of violence are absent, however as a result of they continue to be hidden,” it added.
The rights physique careworn that the absence of knowledge from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the poor element from Balochistan, and the shortcoming of police departments to supply standardised info level to a painful actuality that Pakistan nonetheless doesn’t have a central, dependable nationwide mechanism to trace violence in opposition to youngsters.
“The absence of knowledge is itself a type of violence — it erases youngsters from the story of their very own struggling,” the VOPM emphasised.