ISLAMABAD-Despite the fact that majority of the child sexual abuse cases are kept shrouded in secrecy, as many as 1838 cases have been reported during 2008 including 1298 cases of minor girls and 540 of boys. Child sexual abuse is an issue that is considered a taboo in our society and it is difficult to report such cases especially in our society. The actual figures could be much bigger than the reported cases as many such incidents go unreported or often come to the limelight when other persons are involved in these case such as relatives of the victims etc. There are laws such as Pakistan Penal Code 1860 and Hudoood Ordinance 1979,Sindh Children Act (SSA) and Punjab Children Ordinance 1981 (PCO) but the cases of child abuse are on the rise. To keep public as child policy makers informed about the incidents of child sexual abuse (CSA) occurring in Pakistan, Sahil, an NGO working for child rights and protection produced a yearly statistical report of 2008 based on child sexual abuse cases reported from the 69 newspapers or other sources. Data shared with TheNation revealed that the child sexual abuse rate in Pakistan continued to be three children per day in the year 2008. Total number of cases reported in last year were 1838 including 1298 (70%) cases of girls and 540 (30%) of boys. The statistics also showed that rural cases were higher in the Punjab, Sindh and AJK, whereas in Federal Capital, NWFP and Balochistan the cases are mainly from urban areas. According to details a predominant number of cases from Punjab have been reported in the year 2008, with the ratio of 68 % while number of cases reported from the NWFP and Balochistan are fewer since such cases are hidden due to the tribal customs of these provinces and local compromises. The cases in the rural communities are more as compared to the urban areas overall. This is directly related to the fact that 70% of the population lives in rural areas. The findings also indicated that newspaper monitoring of court convictions reported in the year 2008 showed that court sentenced only 68 abusers. The report said that the Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) cases monitored during the year 2008 have slightly decreased as compared to the total number of CSA cases in the year 2007. While sharing main findings of report Executive Director of Shail Manizeh Bano urged that child sexual abuse was not just an individual or family problem rather it was a serious concern for the whole society, instead of blaming children for the unfortunate happening we should help them in overcoming the intense trauma, which might be lifelong. She further maintained that we collected this data with the aim to know the reality, so that relevant strategies for prevention, intervention and protection can be made accordingly. She said that during research, we noticed that police registration of the CSA cases have remained almost the same over the past few years, 81% cases were registered with the police and the status of 14% cases in this regard was unknown. "A small percentage of the cases unregistered with the police, usually include those in which an influential abuser is involved and does not let the victim's family register an FIR", she further noted. She informed that reported cases of 2008 showed that both genders from all age groups up to 18 years were vulnerable to abuse, however more girls than boys have been abused, and this can especially be seen in the age group of 11-15 years. He also informed that in 53 reported cases, often the mother was the one who mustered up enough courage to finally take action and approach the police.