Across many metropolitan centres in the developing world, including Pakistan’s cities, children sleeping near bus terminals, railway stations, parks and shrines, begging or selling small items at traffic signals, or working in and around markets have become part of the everyday urban landscape. What remains largely unseen, however, is the violence that shadows their lives in these public spaces.
Sexual exploitation of children in street situations is among the most pervasive yet least acknowledged child protection challenges in Pakistan as well as globally. It persists not because it is rare, but because it is inconvenient to confront. Too few of these children are reflected in official reports or policy debates, despite their visible presence in daily city life.
A recent report presented to the United Nations General Assembly by the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children, titled A Child-Centred Response to the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Street Situations, brings this reality into sharper focus. The report highlights how poverty, displacement, lack of legal identity, gaps in community-level and localised child protection responses, and, critically, the criminalisation of survival behaviours such as begging, informal street work or sleeping in public spaces expose children in street situations to heightened risks of sexual exploitation. These findings resonate strongly with Pakistan’s urban context.
Children in street situations are not a homogeneous group; behind each child is a distinct story of vulnerability and survival. Some live and work on the streets full-time, while others return to informal settlements at night. Many are undocumented, and many have fled violence directed at them, exposure to domestic violence between parents, severe economic hardship, climate-induced displacement or family breakdown. Yet public policy often treats them as a problem to be controlled, rather than as rights-holders to be protected. This way of seeing children is not neutral; it can contribute to environments in which exploitation thrives.
Transactional and survival sex, grooming, trafficking and technology-facilitated abuse are not abstract risks. They are daily realities for children who lack shelter, supervision and access to services. Girls, boys and children of diverse sexual orientation and gender identities face different but overlapping vulnerabilities. Fear of arrest, harassment or detention by authorities often keeps these children from reporting abuse. When survival itself is treated as an offence, exploitation becomes less visible, less reported and less likely to be addressed.
As a State party to key international child rights instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols, Pakistan has committed itself to protecting all children from exploitation and abuse without discrimination. Following the 18th Constitutional Amendment, responsibility for child protection rests with the provinces, where relevant frameworks and institutional mechanisms are now in place. Yet many children in street situations are not captured by household-based data systems, school enrolment registers or conventional service models.
Children in street situations will not appear in official statistics unless they are actively counted; they will not access protection unless systems are designed to reach them; and they will not be protected from sexual exploitation as long as survival is treated as an offence
Their absence from data reduces their visibility in planning and monitoring processes and weakens accountability for their protection. Pakistan’s National Commission on the Rights of the Child, in its State of Pakistan’s Children 2024 report, similarly recognises street-connected children as a distinct and highly vulnerable group, underscoring the need for child-centred and tailored protection responses within existing legal and institutional frameworks.
This matters now more than ever. In January 2026, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is scheduled to review Pakistan’s State Party report — a process that will involve a high-level government delegation and engagement from relevant federal and provincial authorities responsible for child rights and protection. The Committee has repeatedly clarified States’ obligations towards children in street situations, most notably through General Comment No. 21, which discourages punitive, welfare-based and discretionary approaches and promotes child-centred, rights-based protection. Practices that criminalise survival behaviours or condition access to services sit uneasily with this guidance and merit careful reflection during the review process.
The upcoming second Ministerial Conference on Ending Violence Against Children, scheduled for November 2026 and hosted by the Government of the Philippines, offers another moment of accountability. International forums often generate strong declarations but uneven follow-through. If such platforms are to be meaningful, they must address those children most at risk — not only those easiest to reach. Explicit pledges to protect children in street situations from sexual exploitation would signal seriousness rather than charity.
What would a credible response look like? It would begin with formal recognition of children in street situations as a distinct group requiring tailored protection, not ad hoc charity or forced “rehabilitation”. It would replace punitive responses to children engaged in begging or informal street work with mandatory referral to child protection authorities and social support services. It would ensure that street-connected children are included in provincial child protection information systems and independent oversight reporting, rather than remaining outside household-based data sets.
It would issue operational SOPs directing police and service providers to treat street-connected children as children in need of protection, not offenders, with mandatory referral to child protection authorities. It would also guarantee access to legal identity, healthcare, psychosocial support and child-friendly reporting mechanisms without exclusionary conditions, and invest in trauma-informed practice across frontline institutions so that protection rather than punishment becomes the default response.
For many of these children, protection is not something that fails dramatically; it simply never arrives. Visibility, therefore, is critical. Translating and disseminating global findings into national and provincial languages, and integrating them into government planning and oversight, would help bridge the gap between international standards and local action. Civil society organisations working directly with street-connected children already play a vital role in outreach, trust-building and service delivery. They should be treated as partners within national systems, not as substitutes for public responsibility.
The sexual exploitation of children in street situations is not a marginal issue. It reflects how a society treats children who are poor, displaced or treated as socially inconvenient. Ending violence against children requires confronting the systems that allow abuse to flourish in plain sight.
As Pakistan prepares for international review and renewed commitments, it faces a test of credibility. Children in street situations will not appear in official statistics unless they are actively counted; they will not access protection unless systems are designed to reach them; and they will not be protected from sexual exploitation as long as survival is treated as an offence. The credibility of Pakistan’s child rights commitments will ultimately be measured not by declarations made in global forums, but by whether the most invisible children are finally made visible, protected and heard.