Digital Platforms Expose Pakistan’s Children to Harm Amid Lack of Protective Laws

When 12-year-old Ayesha (name changed) came home from school one afternoon, she was already shaking. A classmate had posted a short video of her clipped from a longer dance she’d shared privately with close friends and slapped a cruel caption over it. Within hours the clip had been stitched into memes, boys in her class were mocking her in the playground, and strangers had flooded her inbox with insults and threats. Ayesha stopped eating properly, stopped sleeping through the night, and began avoiding school. Her parents found her in the dark, scrolling the same comments on repeat, as if chasing an answer that would never come. Ayesha’s story is composite, not a single chronicle, but the lived pattern reported to helplines, counsellors, and teachers across Pakistan. It is also the shape of a national gap: laws, bans and controls aimed at social media; almost nothing aimed at the children who use it every day.

Pakistan has moved quickly to regulate and control online platforms and even debated banning social media for minors, yet there is no coherent national programme to teach children digital skills, build resilience, or provide widespread school-based mental-health support. Pakistan now ranks 8th among countries with the largest internet user base, with 82.9 million internet users and 71.7 million active social media accounts as of 2022. Internet penetration stands at 36.5 percent of the total population, and it grew by 22 million new users in a single year. The country also has 186.9 million mobile connections, a number that shows how deeply technology has penetrated every layer of society. Yet, while connectivity has surged, digital literacy and child safety mechanisms have not kept pace. With the country’s median age around 22 years, millions of minors use digital devices unsupervised.

The National Commission on the Rights of Child (NCRC), in its latest report on Child Online Protection, has revealed an alarming rise in the digital threats faced by children in Pakistan. The report shows that children are increasingly exposed to a wide range of online risks, including cyberbullying, harassment, grooming, and sexual exploitation. With greater internet access through smartphones, online classes, and social media , children are coming online at younger ages, yet they lack the digital literacy needed to protect themselves. The report highlights that most parents and children are unaware of privacy settings, reporting mechanisms, and safe online practices, making minors even more vulnerable.

According to the NCRC, cyberbullying has become widespread, especially against girls who often face body shaming, character assassination, deepfakes, and threats linked to honour. Cases of online grooming, coercion into sharing intimate images, and sextortion are also rising, with perpetrators frequently operating anonymously. Despite the surge in harm, the report notes that children rarely report these incidents due to fear, shame, or lack of trust in institutions. Schools, too, are ill-equipped, often lacking counselling services, complaint mechanisms, or any structured digital safety education. The report further exposes major gaps in the country’s response: the absence of a unified national reporting system, weak coordination between government bodies, and poor implementation of existing laws such as PECA. Agencies responsible for child protection, including the FIA Cyber Crime Wing and PTA, work in silos, resulting in delayed action and low conviction rates. The psychological impact on children is severe, with many suffering from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and disruptions in their education. The NCRC emphasises the urgent need for a National Online Child Safety Policy, stronger collaboration between institutions, improved moderation by tech companies, and digital literacy programmes for children, parents, and schools.

In Pakistan, Sahil, a non-governmental organisation working against child sexual abuse, reported 4,213 child abuse cases in 2023, including sexual abuse, abduction, missing children, and child marriage. In the first half of 2024, they recorded 1,630 cases, of which 862 were child sexual abuse, while over the full year 2024, 3,364 cases were reported.

The Digital Rights Foundation’s Cyber Harassment Helpline received 2,473 new complaints in 2023, of which children were targeted in a significant number, and 3,171 complaints of tech-facilitated gender-based violence were reported in 2024. The helpline found that females are generally more vulnerable to extortion and non-consensual use of their information ,pictures, videos, and phone numbers, while fake profiles and hacked accounts tend to have a deeper emotional impact on women and damage their reputation in society. This fear of stigma is one of the reasons why very few cases are reported to law enforcement.

Roshni Helpline, a non-profit specialising in recovering missing children, informed the NCRC that in 2023 they recovered 1,512 children, and in the first half of 2024, they received 1,145 missing-children cases, out of which 772 children were recovered. Several of these children had been lured by criminals through chat groups like WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as classified-ad websites such as Locanto. In one case, a girl was sexually abused and trafficked into a massage parlour.

Nighat Dad, a Pakistani lawyer and founder / Executive Director of the Digital Rights Foundation, has warned that children’s increasing exposure to social media makes them vulnerable to cyberbullying, harassment, and online predators. She argues that parents and schools must create “safe and secure spaces” so children feel they can talk about their experiences, and stresses that digital‑security education and age-appropriate boundaries are essential to protect young minds

A 15-year-old boy, Grade 8 student, narrated in a witness statement that he was introduced to the offender by his friend, who later started taking pictures on his mobile phone and over time lured the victim and took nude pictures of him, after which the offender started blackmailing him to satisfy his unnatural lust. The victim also narrated details of how he was taken to different places where the abuser blackmailed him, committed unnatural offences, and made nude films.

A UNICEF situational analysis of child online protection in Pakistan found that children are vulnerable to online risks like exposure to inappropriate content and sexual exploitation, and that the problem is growing with new technologies like deepfakes and the metaverse. The report highlights a need for stronger legal frameworks, public awareness, and partnerships to protect children online and recommends improvements in the digital child protection ecosystem.

Over the last two years, Pakistan’s lawmakers and regulators have focused on controlling content and policing platforms. In July 2025, a bill was filed in the Senate proposing a ban on social media accounts for people under 16. The bill was presented by Senators Syed Masroor Ahsan and Sarmad Ali of the Pakistan People’s Party, proposing a ban on all children under 16 from accessing platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Social media companies that allow underage users could face fines between Rs 50,000 and Rs 5 million, and adults who help children open accounts could face up to six months in jail. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) was tasked with deleting underage users’ accounts and implementing an age-verification mechanism.

According to the bill text reported by Dawn, its stated purpose is “to protect children from online exploitation, cyber-bullying, and harmful content.” The bill sponsors highlighted that it aims to increase digital awareness among parents and children and create a safer online environment . However, the proposal faced widespread criticism from civil society and digital-rights advocates, who warned that punitive approaches alone could displace rather than eliminate harm.

The Lahore High Court subsequently issued notices to PTA and other relevant parties regarding a petition challenging the ban, illustrating that the government’s role and enforcement mechanisms are under legal scrutiny (Internews.pk). This demonstrates the tension between legislative intent to safeguard children and the practical realities of enforcing digital age restrictions, highlighting the broader need for education, counselling, and supportive infrastructure alongside regulation.

The problem lies partly in awareness and partly in enforcement. Parents and teachers, often digital immigrants themselves, rarely have the tools to understand online grooming, sextortion, or the dark patterns of social media. Schools generally focus on academic content, leaving digital safety out of curricula. Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies struggle with resource constraints, outdated investigation tools, and jurisdictional barriers when crimes cross borders, as they almost always do online.

Dr. Jean M. Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, argues that children’s heavy use of social media and smartphones is damaging their psychological well‑being. Her research, particularly presented in her book iGen, links the rapid rise of smartphone use with a steep increase in teen depression, anxiety, loneliness, and disrupted sleep.

Teachers describe an awkward paradox: corporal punishment is prohibited and stricter codes of conduct limit school discipline, yet schools are not equipped to deal with digital harm. “I can’t hit a child, and thank God for that,” one teacher told thereporters.pk. “But I also don’t know how to stop ten classmates from sharing an image on WhatsApp.” Parents say they are overwhelmed, caught between economic pressures, lack of digital literacy, and the fear of being judged if their child becomes a target. Counsellors and small NGOs report that victims often arrive late: parents bring children only after a crisis—a suicide attempt, a severe panic episode, or when the child refuses to leave home. By then emotional damage is already deep. These human costs are harder to legislate than platform features, but they are where long-term recovery work must begin.

When students like Ayesha internalise ridicule, the consequences ripple: attendance drops, learning outcomes suffer, social isolation grows, and in severe cases self-harm increases. The country’s broader wellbeing metrics educational attainment, mental-health burden, and youth productivity are at stake. In 2014, a Dawn report quoted Habiba Salman, National Coordinator of the Child Rights Movement, warning that “There is no child protection system in the Islamabad Capital Territory and a number of bills related to children’s rights are pending at the National Assembly level.” A decade later, the warning still stands. Despite rapid technological change and explosive growth in children’s online presence, the country has not built the legal or institutional scaffolding needed to keep them safe.

Sobia, a sixth-grade student, abruptly stopped attending classes. A group of classmates had created a secret Instagram page using the school’s official logo and lifted her photograph from the school’s public social-media account. They mocked her dark complexion, her “fatty body,” her clothes—turning her into the latest victim of a digital bullying chain. Teachers learned of the harassment only after her parents begged for help. By then, Sobia had grown withdrawn and fearful, crying at the mention of school and refusing to step outside. Her case, like so many others, never entered an official record.

There is an urgent need for a coordinated national digital safety framework that brings together the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Ministry of IT and Telecom, Ministry of Education, and private-sector platforms. PTA’s regulatory powers can be expanded to include mandatory child safety audits for tech companies operating in Pakistan. Schools can integrate digital literacy modules into their curricula, teaching technical skills as well as focusing on online ethics, data privacy, and responsible social media use.

The consequences ripple far beyond individual emotional trauma. When children internalise humiliation and fear, attendance drops, concentration weakens, learning capacity deteriorates, and social isolation deepens. The risk of long-term psychological harm, including self-harm, rises. These outcomes collectively shape Pakistan’s educational performance, youth wellbeing, and even future workforce productivity.

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan undertakes in Article 3 to ensure the elimination of all forms of exploitation and the protection of law as the inalienable right of every citizen. Article 11 prohibits all forms of slavery, forced labour, human trafficking, employment of children under 14, and work of children in hazardous conditions. Article 25 guarantees equal protection under the law and allows special provisions for women and children. Article 35 obligates the state to protect families and children, and Article 37(e) calls for humane conditions of work, ensuring children and women are not employed in vocations unsuited to their age or sex.

The Pakistan Penal Code, 1860, contains provisions relevant to online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Sections 292A, 293, and 294 deal with exposure to seduction of children, sale of obscene materials, and related offences. Amendments through the Criminal Law Amendment Act 2023 and PECA 2016 broaden definitions of “child sexual abuse content” and “sexually explicit conduct,” enhance penalties, and improve investigation procedures, including witness statements via modern digital devices.