First Lady Asifa Bhutto Calls for Stronger Child Protection System Across Pakistan

• First Lady Asifa Bhutto Zardari has called for child protection to become a shared national responsibility across Pakistan.
• She urged stronger measures to prevent physical and sexual violence, trafficking, forced labour, child marriage and online exploitation.
• She said survivors must be heard and treated with dignity, while perpetrators should face swift and effective legal action.

First Lady of Pakistan Bibi Asifa Bhutto Zardari has called for stronger institutions, preventive measures and coordinated national action to protect children from violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect.

In a statement on child protection, she said every child has an unconditional right to grow up safely at home, in school, within the community and in the rapidly expanding digital world.

She stressed that violence or neglect involving a child could never be excused as a private family matter, social custom or unfortunate circumstance. Whenever a child is harmed, she said, society has failed to fulfil one of its most fundamental responsibilities.

Asifa Bhutto noted that children worldwide continue to experience physical and sexual violence, trafficking, forced labour, child marriage and different forms of exploitation, including abuse carried out through digital platforms.

Referring to repeated warnings from the United Nations, she said violence against children remained widespread but preventable. Addressing it effectively required political commitment, capable institutions and sustained action rather than temporary responses.

She said the need for effective child protection was particularly urgent in Pakistan, where recent evidence of online exploitation had shown how quickly threats to children were evolving.

Technology should expand access to education, knowledge and new opportunities for children, she said, but it must never provide predators with a route into their lives.

The first lady emphasised that child protection should begin before a tragedy occurs. Preventive action, she said, required informed and vigilant parents, secure schools, properly trained teachers, responsive police and social services, effective protection mechanisms, responsible digital platforms and communities prepared to report children at risk.

She maintained that whenever a crime against a child occurred, there must be no silence, social stigma or attempt to shield the perpetrator.

“A frightened child must be heard. A harmed child must be protected. A survivor must be treated with dignity. And an offender must face the law,” she said.

Asifa Bhutto said children should never be forced to demonstrate that they deserved protection, as their age and vulnerability automatically placed that responsibility upon adults, institutions and society.

She called for Pakistan to continue developing an integrated child-protection system in which prevention, reporting, investigation, rehabilitation and justice function together effectively.

Such a system, she said, must ensure that children and their families know where to seek assistance and that institutions respond rapidly and sensitively without exposing survivors to additional distress or trauma.

She also emphasised the importance of listening directly to children, saying their concerns, experiences and perspectives must help shape policies and decisions affecting their lives.

Protecting childhood was not an act of charity, she said, but a matter of fundamental rights, justice and the kind of society Pakistan intended to build.

Asifa Bhutto urged federal and provincial institutions, law-enforcement agencies, schools, civil society groups, religious and community leaders, media organisations, technology companies and families to treat child protection as a collective national obligation.

She said safeguarding children represented one of the most important investments Pakistan could make in its future, as today’s children would eventually inherit the country.

The first lady concluded that children deserved more than sympathy after suffering harm. They required vigilance before danger reached them, protection whenever they faced a threat and justice when their rights were violated.

She said this must become Pakistan’s enduring promise to every child.