Pakistan Launches First National Strategy to End Violence Against Children
Pakistan has launched the first national strategy it has ever drawn up to end violence against children. The five-year framework, covering 2026 to 2031, was prepared by the Ministry of Human Rights with the World Health Organisation and is meant to give the country’s roughly 120 million children one coordinated system for prevention, protection and access to justice, instead of the patchwork that exists today.
Parliamentary Secretary for Human Rights Saba Sadiq presented the strategy at a national consultation in Islamabad this week. The two-day meeting, attended by more than 100 officials, experts, civil society groups and young people, also serves as preparation for the second Global Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, which meets in Manila in November.
The numbers behind the strategy are stark. Up to eight in ten children in Pakistan experience violent discipline. Among internet users aged 12 to 17, one in 16 has faced technology-facilitated sexual exploitation or abuse. More than 841,000 children between 10 and 17 have been married, millions are in child labour, and over half of all children under five are not registered with the authorities at all — a gap that makes protecting them harder from the start.
The plan reaches well beyond physical abuse. It covers sexual and psychological violence, neglect, child marriage, trafficking, child labour and online exploitation, and singles out displaced children, migrants and those growing up in poor informal settlements as the most exposed.
Its structure follows the INSPIRE approach used internationally: firmer laws, safer surroundings, support for parents and caregivers, help with household finances, proper response services when abuse happens, and life skills for children themselves. The emphasis, officials at the launch stressed, is on joining prevention, protection, recovery and justice into a single system rather than treating each case as an isolated emergency.
