Weak child safeguards in Pakistan are fueling orphanage trafficking
Pakistani authorities arrested Dr. Mubina Cassum Aboatwala, chair of the NGO HOPE, on charges of orphanage trafficking. On August 6, 2025, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) accused HOPE of trafficking minors disguised as adoptions.
The FIA said, “HOPE was neither a registered orphanage nor legally empowered to arrange adoptions.” Yet the group pushed children forward as “abandoned babies,” offering little proof of how they entered its care. The case erupted after the US Consulate General’s Fraud Prevention Unit flagged three adoption visa applications with “strikingly similar documentation,” sparking an investigation.
The idea of vulnerable “orphans” in the Global South attracts big money from donors and unwitting volunteers who mistakenly believe they are doing the right thing. Sadly, many “orphans” face sexual abuse, forced labor, forced begging, or are sold into illegal adoptions.
Orphanage trafficking looms beyond just Pakistan
The scandal is not an isolated one. In June 2024, a prominent social worker, was arrested by the FIA after the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service alerted Pakistani authorities to possible orphanage trafficking. As reported by The Friday Times,
“Pakistan’s regulatory gaps create conditions in which children can be transformed into ‘paper orphans’, their family ties obscured or falsified in order to facilitate cross-border transfers.”
Similarly, UNICEF found that nearly 80 per cent of children in ‘orphanages’ had at least one living parent in Cambodia.
Families were persuaded, and sometimes pressured, to give up their children with promises of education and support. Those children were then presented as orphans to attract donations or facilitate foreign adoptions.
Technically, Pakistan has the laws it needs to root out this kind of exploitation on paper. However, weak safeguarding allows this kind of exploitation to persist. Every province mandates orphanages to obtain licenses, yet unregistered institutions still operate widely. The government routinely ignores notices of non-compliance.