A total of 3,630 child abuse cases were reported across Pakistan in 2025, according to new figures released by Sahil, which monitors violence against children and women.
In a statement issued on Monday, the organization said the cases had been reported in 81 different newspapers from across the four provinces, as well as Islamabad Capital Territory, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
Sahil said the total represented an 8% increase or 266 more cases compared to 2024.
Its data showed that girls accounted for 1,924 cases, or 53% of victims, while boys accounted for 1,625 cases, or 47%. Another 116 cases involved newborn babies.
The organization said the figures meant more than nine children were being abused every day on average by 2025.
Abduction was the most frequently reported category with 1,107 cases, followed by sodomy with 596 cases and rape with 522. Other reported categories included 365 cases of missing children, 195 cases of attempted rape, 141 cases of attempted sodomy, 130 cases of gang sodomy, 108 cases of sexual assault and 5 cases of sexual murder, 53 cases of child marriage.
Read: Israel drops the charges against five soldiers in the case of abuse of Palestinian prisoners
According to the report, children between the ages of 11 and 15 were the most vulnerable to abuse, with more boys than girls affected in that age group.
Sahil said acquaintances remained the category most often involved in child sexual abuse cases.
Punjab accounted for 73% of the total reported cases of child abuse followed by Sindh with 21%, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with 4% and 2% from Balochistan, Federal Territories, AJK and GB combined.
The organization also said that 82% of reported cases of child abuse were registered with the police, calling it a positive sign of active policing.
Sahil also released figures on violence against women and said it had been monitoring such cases for the past two years.
It said 7,071 cases of gender-based violence (GBV) were reported across the country in 2025, covering categories including murder, suicide, abduction, rape, honor killing and torture. The total also included a small number of cases involving transgender people.
According to Sahil, the figures for 2025 showed a 34% increase in GBV cases.
The largest category was murder with 1,546 cases, followed by 1,345 abductions and 1,169 cases of torture. 877 cases of rape, 680 suicides, 449 cases of injury, 316 cases of harassment, 284 honor killings and 41 acid attacks were also reported.
The data showed that 32% of abusers in GBV cases were acquaintances, 18% were strangers and 12% were husbands, while in 20% of cases the abuser was not named.
Punjab accounted for 78% of total GBV cases reported in 2025, followed by Sindh with 14%, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa with 6% and 2% from Balochistan, ICT, AJK and GB combined.
