Online abuse puts 1.5m Pakistani children at risk: study

A joint study by Unicef, ECPAT International and Interpol published in September 2026 found that 1.5 million Pakistani children face risk of online sexual exploitation and abuse. The research documented unwanted sexual images, demands for intimate photographs, non-consensual sharing of children's images, and sexual blackmail, with 85 percent of perpetrators being someone the child already knew and social media accounting for 44 percent of reported abuse incidents. The UN General Assembly identified AI-generated sexual material as an emerging risk, while gaps in Pakistan's legal framework mean child forensic interviews are not systematically conducted by specially trained professionals, increasing the risk of secondary victimisation during investigations.

The finding that contact-based harm originates overwhelmingly from existing acquaintances underscores the operational gap that targeted, real-time detection can close. Guardii's anti-grooming and anti-sextortion modules analyse conversation patterns—escalation, coercion, requests for imagery—across the platforms where children are actually at risk, surfacing the child in crisis to a parent or professional before compliance or transfer to an unmonitored channel, and enabling rapid escalation to the appropriate authority where the law-enforcement and forensic response is already shown to be under-resourced.