‘I reside in worry’: 1.5 million Pakistani kids deal with online sexual assault

With around 74 percent of kids aged 12 to 17 in Pakistan approximated by Unicef to be internet users, issues over online security are growing as their access to digital platforms broadens.– iStock pic

Released: Monday, 21 Sep 2026 9:00 PM MYT

ISLAMABAD, Sept 21– Pakistani teen Zara Shah was targeted by a complete stranger while playing a video game, drawn into a discussion that would expose her to scary online sexual exploitation.

Zara, whose name has actually been altered by AFP for security factors, is among an approximated 1.5 million kids in Pakistan who experienced online sexual assault in one year, according to a report released by the UN kid’s firm this month.

“We began talking while playing an online video game, and he started imitating a good friend. Later on, he wished to fulfill and, after, began asking me for nudes,” 17-year-old Shah stated.

“When I declined, he threatened to discover my household online and inform them that we had actually been talking,” she included.

According to the Unicef report, around 85 percent of criminals were understood to the victims, aged in between 12 and 17.

“The abuse might begin with a friendly discussion, a video gaming interaction, a guarantee of presents, cash or love,” Daniel Kardefelt, lead author of the worldwide Unicef report, informed AFP.

“Perpetrators might invest months constructing trust utilizing info that they discover on social networks,” Kardefelt stated.

In Muslim-majority Pakistan, 71 percent of victims did not inform anybody, according to the Unicef report, while no kid surveyed reported the abuse through official channels– consisting of authorities, helplines or social employees.

Their silence was mainly since of preconception, pity and worries over how their households or society might respond.

“Around 44 percent of reported abuse was totally online, with Snapchat and WhatsApp amongst the most typical settings,” stated Mehek Naeem, director of Pahchaan, a kids’s rights organisation based in the eastern city of Lahore.

Women can deal with increased threats of sexual extortion in the conservative society, which can result in constraints on their movement or withdrawal from school.

For Zara, the hazard of being exposed to her household sufficed to keep her quiet.

“I might have been stopped from going to school or leaving your home completely,” she stated.

“Staying peaceful seemed like the much better choice than speaking out. Stress and anxiety eliminates me every day.”

Loopholes, ‘no execution’

With around 74 percent of kids aged 12 to 17 in Pakistan approximated by Unicef to be internet users, issues over online security are growing as their access to digital platforms broadens.

Echoing other policies all over the world, the provincial federal government in Punjab this month passed a resolution to bar kids under 16 from utilizing social networks.

It has actually dealt with opposition.

“I disagree with the restriction,” stated Usama Khilji, a digital rights activist.

“It will be a difficulty to execute, and kids can prevent the restriction through VPNs. Kids have the right of liberty of expression, and a restriction takes that away,” he stated.

Pakistan has a legal structure attending to tech-facilitated offenses versus kids, however “there is no application”, stated Tahira Afrasiyab, a representative for non-profit organisation Muslim Hands.

And, according to specialists, there are loopholes in existing laws.

Human rights legal representative Salman Afridi stated this concern demonstrates how “financial vulnerability can be weaponised” for quantities as little as 10,000 Pakistani rupees (RM147) in exchange for the production of sexual material.

“What we are seeing is using innovation to help with a whole chain of grooming, incentive, browbeating, blackmail, production, circulation and commercialisation,” he stated.

“There is a strong basis for explaining this as an industrial community of exploitation,” Afridi included.

For Zara and numerous others like her, the repercussions of an encounter that started with an online video game stay tough to get away.

“I was, and am, frightened,” she stated. “I reside in worry.”– AFP