The interior ministry informed the Senate on Tuesday that of the 567 cases of sexual abuse registered in Islamabad between 2021 and June 2025, 200 of them involved children.

The data reported by the interior ministry was presented in a written response to Senator Shahdhat Awan during a Senate session today.

Of the 200 cases of child sexual abuse reported, 93 of the child victims were male and 108 were female.

The ministry added that 222 accused parties were arrested, of which only 12 were convicted. 163 remain under trial, while 15 have been acquitted and 26 remain at large.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in the written statement that “as per reports obtained from all police stations of Islamabad through (the) Zonal Superintendent of Police, during the period from January 1 2021 to 20 June 2025, (a) total 567 cases of rape were registered and 625 accused were arrested”.

“Out of 567 cases, 485 cases were challaned, 80 accused were convicted, 23 accused were acquitted and accused in 406 cases are still facing trial in the competent courts,” he said, adding, “29 cases are under investigation and will be concluded as soon as possible.”

According to the ministry, 266 cases of missing children were also registered in Islamabad from 2022 to 2025. These included 153 boys and 120 girls reported missing.

From these cases, 135 accused were arrested and two sentenced, the ministry said, adding 21 of the accused were acquitted and 103 were awaiting trial.

Separately, a total of 3,364 child abuse cases were reported from all four provinces, Islamabad Capital Territory, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, and Gilgit-Baltistan in the year 2024, according to a civil society report by Sahil in May based on data collected from 81 national and regional newspapers across the country.

In July, police arrested a man after footage showing him allegedly molesting a minor girl in Punjab’s Kasur district went viral online.

In June, the National Cyber Crimes Investigation Agency (NCCIA) exposed a child sexual exploitation gang operating in Punjab’s Muzaffargarh, leading to the arrest of two suspects and the recovery of ten children.

In January of 2018, police recovered the body of six-year-old Zainab Amin five days after she went missing. A postmortem examination suggested that she may have been raped before she was strangled to death, sparking outrage across the nation.

More than two years after the Zainab case, the National Assembly passed the Zainab Alert, Response and Recovery Bill, 2019 that seeks to expedite investigation and punishment for perpetrators of child abuse.