Tahafuz means protection.

What this is

Project Tahafuz is an independent awareness and research initiative documenting child domestic servitude (CDS) in Punjab, Pakistan. It pairs long-form journalism from primary fieldwork with an academic research paper, a plain-language legal review, and a public space for policy recommendations. The goal is to make visible a form of exploitation that Pakistani law and Pakistani public discourse have been comfortable keeping invisible.

How the reporting was done

Fieldwork was conducted at the Child Protection & Welfare Bureau (CPWB) in Lahore, with the written permission of the Bureau's leadership and the individual consent of each of the six girls in its care. Interviews were conducted in Urdu and Punjabi, over multiple sessions, inside the CPWB's regulated environment. A female counsellor was present during some sessions, but not all. No interview was recorded on video. No photograph of any girl in care appears on this site.

Ethics statement

• · Names are pseudonyms except where the girl's identity has already been established in prior public reporting and her guardians have consented to its continued use here.
• · Every published quotation was read back to the girl in her language and approved by her before publication.
• · Identifying details of employers, neighbourhoods, and household staff have been altered where their inclusion would risk retaliation against a girl or her family.
• · No girl in care was compensated for her participation. Follow-up support — educational, medical, legal — is being provided through the CPWB and an independent NGO whose name is withheld at their request.

Who is behind it

Project Tahafuz is the work of a single independent researcher based in Lahore.

Contact

For press, research collaboration, legal advocacy, or policy work, write to tahafuz.project@gmail.com. If you have a policy recommendation you would like on the public record, use the Speak Up page.

Helplines

If you suspect a child is being exploited, abused, or held in a household against their will, report it. Do not wait.