'I live in fear': 1.5 million Pakistani children sexually exploited online

Pakistani teenager Zara Shah was targeted by a stranger while playing a computer game, drawn into a conversation that would expose her to terrifying online sexual exploitation. Zara, whose name has been changed by AFP for safety reasons, is one of an estimated 1. 5 million children in Pakistan who experienced online sexual abuse in one year, according to a report published by the UN children’s agency this month. “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,” 17-year-old Shah said. “When I refused, he threatened to find my family online and tell them that we had been talking,” she added. According to the Unicef report, around 85 per cent of perpetrators were known to the victims, aged between 12 and 17.

“The abuse may start with a friendly conversation, a gaming interaction, a promise of gifts, money or romance,” Daniel Kardefelt, lead author of the global Unicef report, told AFP . “Perpetrators may spend months building trust using information that they find on social media,” Kardefelt said. In Muslim-majority Pakistan, 71pc of victims did not tell anyone, according to the Unicef report, while no child surveyed reported the abuse through formal channels — including police, helplines or social workers. Their silence was mostly because of stigma, shame and fears over how their families or society may react. “Around 44pc 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. Girls can face heightened risks of sexual extortion, which can lead to restrictions on their mobility or withdrawal from school. For Zara, the threat of being…