In March, the Senate was given a number. A written reply from Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said the National Cyber Crime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) had received 523 local complaints about child sexual abuse material in 2025 and the first two months of 2026. Of those, 385 were under inquiry, and 93 had become First Information Reports (FIRs), The News reported on 4 March.
Six months later, in Islamabad, researchers put a different number on the same problem. Nearly one in 16 internet-using children aged 12 to 17 had experienced at least one form of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation or abuse in a single year, according to a study released on 3 September. UNICEF puts that at about 1.5 million children.
The study found something else that matters as much. More than half of the affected children told no one. None of those surveyed had reported to the police, a helpline, or a social worker.
The two numbers do not measure the same thing, and neither should be divided into the other. One is an estimate drawn from a household survey covering about a year. The other counts complaints made to a single agency about one kind of material over 14 months. But the distance between them fits the survey’s own finding: children rarely tell anyone and almost never tell the state.
The reporting gap
The estimate
The study, Disrupting Harm in Pakistan, was produced by UNICEF’s Office of Strategy and Evidence (Innocenti) and ECPAT International with INTERPOL and funded by Safe Online. It drew on a nationally representative household survey of children aged 12 to 17 and their parents or caregivers. The researchers also interviewed frontline and justice professionals and reviewed Pakistan’s laws and policies.
The abuse it documented includes unwanted sexual images or conversations, requests for intimate images, the sharing of a child’s images without permission, and threats or blackmail involving such images. It also covers fake images or videos made with artificial intelligence. UNICEF defines technology-facilitated abuse as the use of digital technology to enable or amplify abuse, whether it happens online or in person. Because the figure comes from a survey, it is an estimate drawn from a sample, not a count of identified victims.
Girls and boys reported abuse at similar rates, UNICEF said. Andrea Varrella, head of programme for justice and child rights at ECPAT International, said their experiences differ. For boys, she said, stigma and expectations around masculinity can mean they are overlooked as victims and discouraged from speaking.
In 85 per cent of the incidents children described, the perpetrator was someone they already knew. Social media accounted for 44 per cent of reported instances, the most common setting the research identified. UNICEF said this challenges the idea that online abuse is mainly a danger from strangers. The report also flags sexual extortion, blackmail and AI-generated abuse material as growing risks.
Ayesha Raza Farooq, chairperson of the National Commission on the Rights of the Child (NCRC), launched the report alongside UNICEF’s representative in Pakistan, Pernille Ironside, and the Minister of State for Law and Justice, Barrister Aqeel Malik. Farooq said Pakistan has a legal foundation for protecting children online. The priority now, she said, is making sure those protections “translate into action”.
The record
The Senate reply carried more than the complaint count. The News reported that 21 FIRs had been registered in 2026 up to the date of the reply. It also reported that NCCIA received 1,034,639 Cyber Tipline reports on child sexual abuse material in 2024, 837,278 in 2025 and 138,612 in 2026 so far.
Cyber Tipline reports are alerts about suspected child sexual abuse material. The US-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children collects them from technology companies and the public and refers them to law enforcement abroad. They count reports of material, not children, and not complaints made by Pakistani families. As The News described the reply, it did not say how many separate cases or children those reports represent.
A second official answer followed a month later. On 2 April, Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja told the National Assembly in a written reply that NCCIA recorded 58 cases involving child abuse content in 2025, The News reported on 3 April.
The two answers went to different houses of Parliament, from different ministers, and used different words: ‘complaints’ and ‘FIRs’ in one, ‘cases’ in the other. Aware Pakistan did not find a public explanation of how the 58 cases relate to the 93 FIRs.
Outside government, the child protection group Sahil keeps a count drawn from newspapers. Its report for January to June 2026 recorded 1,914 reported cases of child abuse across the country. They included 1,015 cases of child sexual abuse and 98 that Sahil classifies as pornography following sexual abuse. Girls made up 58 per cent of victims. Acquaintances were identified as the alleged abusers in 43 per cent of cases and strangers in 34 per cent. Sahil compiled the figures from national and regional newspapers in all four provinces, Islamabad, Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan. They show what was reported and published, not how much abuse took place, and they cover all forms of child abuse, not only online abuse.
What each number measures
The numbers have context.
Choose a figure. Each one counts something different — and the distinction matters.
About 1.5 million
Survey estimateInternet-using children aged 12 to 17 estimated to have experienced technology-facilitated sexual exploitation or abuse.
Why the gap exists
UNICEF said community stigma and victim-blaming keep children and families silent, and so does distrust of the police. It stressed that abuse is never a child’s fault.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) made a related point after publishing its own report on online child sexual abuse. In a post on 27 October, the commission said the cases it documented were only those reported in the first place. The Express Tribune reported on 28 October that HRCP wants the problem treated as a violation of children’s rights, not only as a cybercrime. It warned of underreporting, weak coordination among institutions and inadequate safeguards.
Patterns behind the numbers
Switch between what children described and what newspapers recorded.
Involved someone the child already knew.
Took place on social media — the most common setting.
Sahil’s count points the same way for abuse in general. Nearly half of the incidents it recorded took place inside the child’s own home, according to the report as covered by Minute Mirror. Add the survey’s finding that most perpetrators were known to the child, and the pattern is plain on paper. The people a child would have to tell, or tell on, are often close to them.
October: arrests and announcements
NCCIA announced a run of arrests in cases involving children this month. The people arrested are accused, and no court has ruled on any of these cases.
On 9 October, the agency’s Faisalabad circle arrested a suspect accused of storing and sharing child sexual abuse material, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported. An NCCIA official said the agency follows a zero-tolerance policy and asked the public to report such material to its helpline, 1799.
On 25 October, Additional Director Muhammad Shoaib Khan told a press conference in Islamabad that the agency had arrested a man accused of making and selling sexual abuse material involving his own children through Telegram groups, with payments in cryptocurrency. Khan said raids were under way in Multan, Islamabad and southern Punjab to find others in the network. He also announced the arrest of four alleged members of another network and of a suspect in Islamabad within hours of a complaint involving a girl in Karachi. Geo News reported the same day that NCCIA had taken 42 people into custody in Karachi from three companies accused of producing animated sexual material involving children.
At a Lahore press conference this month, Additional Director Atif Ameer said the agency uses artificial intelligence-based monitoring to identify suspected child exploitation material, Minute Mirror reported.
Policy announcements came as quickly. On 12 October, a national policy dialogue titled Safe Scroll ended in Islamabad with a five-point declaration, Minute Mirror reported. It called for consolidating child helplines under 1121 as a national line with round-the-clock support, and for greater accountability from digital platforms. On 14 and 15 October, the Ministry of Human Rights and the World Health Organization launched the first National Strategy to End Violence Against Children, covering 2026 to 2031, at a national consultation in Islamabad. The strategy is framed around the country’s roughly 120 million children and includes online exploitation. Minute Mirror reported that the government also designated 1121 as the national Safe Scroll helpline on 15 October. Aware Pakistan did not find the notification among the sources it reviewed.
On 22 October, the Federal Judicial Academy and UNICEF opened a model child court in Islamabad, with a child-friendly courtroom and a room set up for video-link testimony. UNICEF described it as a teaching facility for judges and other justice professionals.
The announcements say what the agency and the government are doing. They do not say what happens to the cases afterwards. None of the reports Aware Pakistan reviewed gave a number of convictions in online child sexual abuse cases.
What has not been published
Aware Pakistan did not find public answers to a set of basic questions. The first is how many of the 93 FIRs reached court and how many ended in conviction. No child-specific conviction figure for online abuse cases turned up in any source reviewed.
The second is what became of the complaints that were neither under inquiry nor converted into FIRs. On the figures as reported, 45 of the 523 fall in neither group. That is Aware Pakistan’s arithmetic on the reported numbers, and the reply may explain it differently.
The third is how the 93 FIRs and the 58 cases recorded for 2025 relate to each other. The fourth is how many of the hundreds of thousands of Cyber Tipline reports a year led to an inquiry, an FIR or the identification of a child in Pakistan. The fifth is how many calls to 1799 or 1121 concerned about online abuse of children, and what followed. The last is whether the national strategy has a costed implementation plan and a published timetable.
Until those are answered, the two numbers stay where they were, six months apart and unreconciled.
Where to report
If a child discloses abuse, or you find sexual material involving a child online, do not blame the child. Do not forward or share the material, even to report it. Note the account name or link and report it.
NCCIA’s helpline is 1799, as an NCCIA official told the Associated Press of Pakistan on 9 October 2026, and its website is nccia.gov.pk. The child protection helpline is 1121, which Khyber Pakhtunkhwa launched in June 2025 and which the 12 October declaration proposed as the single national number.
How this story was reported
This story uses public records and published reports only: UNICEF’s release and report page, written replies to the Senate and National Assembly as reported by The News, Sahil’s report as covered by Dawn and The Express Tribune, and agency announcements as reported by Geo News, the Associated Press of Pakistan and Minute Mirror. No child or family was interviewed, and no child is identified. Details that could identify a child, including ages and locations, have been left out. The Senate and National Assembly figures come from The News’s account of the written replies, not from the replies themselves. The figures have not yet been put to NCCIA or the Interior Ministry. This story will be updated if they respond.
UNICEF, a partner in the media fellowship under which this story was produced, co-authored the survey that anchors it. The story was produced under the Media Fellowship on Gender Equality and Child Rights, organised by UNICEF Pakistan, the National Commission on the Status of Women and the National Commission on the Rights of the Child.
