Eight-year-old Zohra Shah was an unpaid domestic worker, employed at the household of a couple in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Her parents agreed she could move to city with her aunt who would provide her with a better life and education, with the view of one day becoming capable of financially supporting her parents. Instead, she was made to live and work for the couple who abused, tortured, and eventually killed her.

On Sunday 31st May 2020, Zohra was brought to the Begum Akhtar Rukhsana Memorial Hospital with extreme injuries. According to the police, the suspect admitted that he and his wife had beaten Zohra after she let his "expensive pet parrots escape from their cage".

Zohra sustained injuries to her face, hands, below her rib cage and legs. She also had wounds on her thighs, which suggested that she might have been sexually assaulted. Zohra died from the injuries she sustained.

Pakistan has a shameful history of child abuse cases. Back in 1999, a man confessed to the murder of 100 runaway boys and orphans living on the streets of Lahore and disposed of their bodies using vats of hydrochloric acid. In 2016, judge Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife, Maheen Zafar, were convicted for torturing their 10-year-old maid, Tayyaba. In 2018, seven-year-old Zainab Ansari was raped and murdered her body found in a rubbish skip.

Whilst there has been no comprehensive study on the number of children abused in Pakistan, it is estimated that there are at least 10 new victims per day, although the real number is almost definitely higher. With poverty rife within the country, and an estimated 22.8 million children aged 5-16 not attending school, many are used as domestic workers - with no rights and no protection from the horrific torture and abuse they are made to endure.

In memory of Zohra, and the countless others subjected to child abuse and torture, The Amir Khan Foundation is launching the Zohra Shah Child Protection Fund to protect innocent children from human rights violations across Pakistan.

As well as supporting Zohra's parents and four siblings directly, the fund will take a four-pronged approach to combatting child abuse and child domestic exploitation by:

1. Providing support to victims and their families, though financial aid and trauma therapy where necessary;

2. Bringing perpetrators to justice through public campaigns to highlight individual cases, while also preventing the settlement of cases through financial coercion by working directly with ministers and courts;

3. Building a network of grassroots organisations to lobby for legislative change.

4. Financially supporting projects on the ground, which protect vulnerable children from child abuse.

Join us in the fight to protect children in Pakistan by pledging your support!