For 17-year-old Zara Shah, an encounter that began while playing a computer game developed into a frightening experience of online sexual exploitation. A stranger initially approached her as a friend before asking for nude images and threatening to contact her family when she refused.
“We started chatting while playing an online game, and he began acting like a friend. Later, he wanted to meet and, after, started asking me for nudes,” Shah said. “When I refused, he threatened to find my family online and tell them that we had been talking.”
Zara, whose name has been changed for safety reasons, is among an estimated 1.5 million children in Pakistan who experienced online sexual abuse in one year, according to a report published by the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF this month. The victims surveyed were aged between 12 and 17, with around 85% of perpetrators known to their victims.
“The abuse may start with a friendly conversation, a gaming interaction, a promise of gifts, money or romance,” said Daniel Kardefelt, lead author of the global UNICEF report. “Perpetrators may spend months building trust using information that they find on social media.”
The findings also point to the extent of silence surrounding such abuse. In Pakistan, 71% of victims did not tell anyone, according to UNICEF, while none of the children surveyed reported their experiences through formal channels such as police, helplines or social workers. Stigma, shame and fears about how families and wider society might respond were among the main reasons victims remained silent.
“Around 44% of reported abuse was entirely online, with Snapchat and WhatsApp among the most common settings,” said Mehek Naeem, director of PAHCHAAN, a children’s rights organisation based in Lahore.
The risks can be particularly severe for girls in Pakistan’s conservative society, where sexual extortion can result in restrictions on their movement or withdrawal from school. For Zara, the possibility that her family would discover the online interaction was enough to prevent her from seeking help.
“I could have been stopped from going to school or leaving the house altogether,” she said. “Staying quiet felt like the better option than speaking up. But anxiety kills me every day.”
The scale of children’s internet use adds to concerns over their exposure to online abuse. UNICEF estimates that around 74% of Pakistani children aged 12 to 17 are internet users, increasing the importance of measures to protect children as access to digital platforms expands.
Authorities have begun considering restrictions on children’s access to social media. The provincial government in Punjab passed a resolution this month to bar children under 16 from using social media, echoing restrictions and proposals emerging elsewhere. The measure has nevertheless faced opposition.
“I disagree with the ban,” said Usama Khilji, a digital rights activist. He argued that implementation would be difficult because children could circumvent restrictions using VPNs, while a ban could infringe on children’s freedom of expression.
Pakistan already has a legal framework for addressing technology-facilitated offences against children, but Tahira Afrasiyab, a spokesperson for nonprofit organisation Muslim Hands, said “there is no implementation”. Experts also point to gaps in existing legislation.
Human rights lawyer Salman Afridi said the problem demonstrates how “economic vulnerability can be weaponized”, including through payments as small as 10,000 Pakistani rupees ($36) for the production of sexual content.
“What we are seeing is the use of technology to facilitate an entire chain of grooming, inducement, coercion, blackmail, production, distribution and commercialization,” he said. Afridi added that there was “a strong basis for describing this as a commercial ecosystem of exploitation”.
For children such as Zara, however, the consequences are not confined to the digital world. An encounter that began with an online game left her fearful of exposure, family repercussions and the consequences of speaking out.
“I was, and am, scared,” she said. “I live in fear.”
