Pakistan faces an immense challenge in cyber sphere. Apart from having no organised intelligence and monitoring mechanism in place to oversee cyber space, lack of internal accountability tools has resulted into a meek response against individual or collective online aberrant behaviour — such as child abuse, sexual exploitation, enticement and extortion by variegated predators. The AI-generated images and videos have also presented a complex scenario. Moreover, the situation is compounded by corruption, manipulation, presence of a dis-coordinated response at national or provincial levels and lack of meaningful investigation — resulting into a low conviction or no conviction at all.

The data on online child abuse and exploitation (OCAE) is often difficult to analyse and even harder to authenticate. Such a data should contain a set of benchmarks such as child sexual abuse material, number of countries covered in a particular area or region, number of data sources used, number of reports originated per 1,000 persons and internet penetration level.

According to one study, three regions — South Asia, East Asia & Pacific and Western Europe -— constitute more than 50 per cent of the online content across the globe. The South Asian region sits on the top of the list........

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