LAHORE: A troubling increase has emerged in cases of sexual abuse of young children in Lahore, with 484 cases registered during the first seven months of the current year — 20 per cent higher than in the same period last year.
According to police records, 402 cases of child sexual abuse were registered during the first seven months of 2025. In the same period this year that number has risen to 484.
The figures show the increase is not evenly distributed across the city.
In City Division, 80 cases were registered this year against 72 last year. In Cantt Division the figure rose from 109 to 112, and in Civil Lines Division from 21 to 30.
The sharpest increases were recorded elsewhere. In Sadar Division, the number of child sexual abuse cases rose from 78 to 110. In Iqbal Town Division, 76 cases were registered this year against 42 in the same period last year — an increase of more than 80 per cent.
Model Town Division was the single exception to the trend, recording 76 cases this year against 80 last year.
Police records indicate an overall increase in incidents across Lahore’s divisions, with investigations proceeding on the basis of the cases registered.
These figures record cases registered, and that is not the same as cases occurring. The distinction is central to interpreting them, and it cuts in two directions.
A rise in registration can reflect a rise in offences. It can also reflect improved reporting — greater public awareness, reduced stigma, more accessible complaint mechanisms, or a policy shift making police stations less able to refuse registration of an FIR. Child protection specialists in Pakistan have long argued that the true incidence of child sexual abuse is a large multiple of the reported figure, because the overwhelming majority of cases involve a perpetrator known to the family, and family pressure to suppress the complaint is intense.
An 80 per cent jump in a single division, as recorded in Iqbal Town, is more consistent with a change in reporting or recording behaviour than with a genuine doubling of offences in twelve months. Equally, the near-flat figure in Cantt Division and the small decline in Model Town do not establish that those areas are safer.
What the numbers do establish is a floor. At least 484 children in Lahore were the subject of a registered criminal complaint of sexual abuse between January and July. That figure alone is grave.
Pakistan strengthened its legal architecture after the murder of Zainab Ansari in Kasur in 2018. The Criminal Law (Second Amendment) Act 2016 had already inserted specific offences of sexual abuse of a child, child pornography and cruelty to a child into the Penal Code. The Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act 2020 created a federal alert mechanism and the ZARRA agency for missing and abducted children. Punjab operates the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau, and Lahore Police maintain a Gender Crime Cell to which such investigations are transferred.
The persistent gap is not statutory. It is in what happens after registration: the availability of trained investigating officers, timely forensic medical examination, child-friendly recording of statements, protection of the complainant from pressure to compromise, and conviction rates. National data on child sexual abuse prosecutions has consistently shown a steep attrition between FIRs registered and convictions secured.
Registration figures without disposal figures tell only half a story. This newspaper is seeking, and will publish, four additional data points from Lahore Police for the same seven-month period: the number of these 484 cases in which a challan was submitted to court; the number in which the accused was known to the victim’s family; the number in which the complaint was subsequently compromised or withdrawn; and the number of convictions secured in cases registered in 2025.
Those four numbers, not the headline count, will show whether the system is functioning. We will report them.
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