LAHORE: Crimes against children have continued unabated across Punjab, including Lahore, with 32 children killed after being sexually abused over a two-year period, while 15 children were subjected to assault on more than one occasion.
According to police sources, 27 individuals in the record were found to have been involved in incidents of child sexual abuse on more than one occasion.
The record shows that 23.2 per cent of incidents of child abuse were reported in streets and lanes, while 60 per cent of incidents of child sexual abuse occurred in rural areas.
Faisalabad, Kasur and Sheikhupura were the most unsafe districts with regard to crimes against children, while Lahore stands fourth in crimes against children.
The figure that carries the greatest policy weight in this dataset is not the headline count but the presence of 27 individuals linked to more than one incident, alongside 15 children abused more than once.
Repeat offending on this scale points to a failure at the post-registration stage rather than at the reporting stage. Where a suspect returns to offend, it ordinarily indicates one of a limited set of conditions: the initial case did not result in conviction; bail was granted and the matter subsequently collapsed; the complaint was compromised out of court; or the offender remained in proximity to the same community without any monitoring mechanism.
Pakistan has no functioning sex offender register that would allow schools, employers or communities to identify a person with a prior conviction. Proposals for such a register have been raised in the National Assembly and in provincial forums on more than one occasion without producing an operational system.
The finding that 60 per cent of child sexual abuse incidents occurred in rural areas cuts against a common assumption that such crimes are predominantly an urban phenomenon.
It also carries practical consequences for response. Rural jurisdictions typically have longer distances to the nearest police station and to designated medico-legal facilities, fewer trained women investigation officers, less access to psychological support services and stronger social pressure toward informal settlement through panchayat-style mediation. Each of those factors depresses both reporting and conviction.
The finding that nearly a quarter of incidents were reported from streets and lanes indicates opportunistic offending in public space, which points toward a distinct set of preventive measures — supervision, lighting, community watch and school-based awareness — from those required where abuse occurs within a household or an institution.
Kasur’s presence among the most affected districts is significant given the national attention the district has drawn in past years, and it raises the question of whether the institutional response that followed those cases produced durable change.
Lahore’s position at fourth reflects both incidence and, in part, the province’s most developed reporting infrastructure — a caveat that applies to all comparative district data on this subject, since higher recorded numbers can reflect better reporting as well as higher incidence.
Punjab operates the Child Protection and Welfare Bureau, and the province is covered by the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2016, the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Act, 2020 and the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Act, 2021, the last of which provides for special courts and time-bound trials.
Child rights organisations have consistently argued that the gap lies in implementation — in the availability of special courts, the training of investigators, the protection of complainants from pressure to compromise, and the absence of monitoring of released offenders.
If you or a child you know needs help, the Punjab Child Protection and Welfare Bureau helpline can be reached at 1121, and Police Emergency at 15.
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