Manizeh Bano, Executive Director of a Pakistan-based NGO called Sahil that works against child sexual abuse and exploitation, she says that the country's harsh gender restrictions makes it difficult for mothers to protect their own children. "It is the most difficult because mothers don't have options, they often have to live within that same family, they can't get up and go anywhere," she says.

Cases like Zoya's aren't uncommon, according to Bano, and lack of support that exists for women in Pakistan makes them often unable to help their daughters get out of the situation. In Pakistan most families are still overwhelmingly financially supported by men. Bano says that if a mother learns that her husband is sexually molesting her daughters, she has nowhere to turn because there is little to no state assistance for battered women in Pakistan if they chose not to live with their husbands.

In 2010, a total of 2252 cases child sexual abuse were reported in the news, according to Sahil. That's almost a 12 percent increase from the previous year. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) states that these numbers are a fraction of the actual problem. It suspects that many cases of sexual violence are simply covered up, especially when they happen at the hands of a family member.

Zohra Yousuf, the chairperson for Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, says that she doesn't suspect that the increase in number of reported cases in the media means that more crime of incest are happening, she says it could be that because Pakistanis are finally starting to come forward and discuss a type of crime that she believes is very prevalent in Pakistan but severely under-reported.

Incest and child abuse happen all over the world. But, according to a report by Equality Now, an international human rights organization, victims of incest in Pakistan face additional barriers in seeking justice.

The report also notes that, in the very few cases where a victim does come forward, the case rarely makes it past the procedural hurdles in the justice system. Even police officers, who are usually the first line of contact for these victims, sometimes refuse to file a complaint, sending the victim home and telling her that she is immoral for saying such things against her own father, according to Bano. The report by Equality Now also notes that perpetrators are never apprehended in most case or are often released without charges.

Prosecuting these abuses can be difficult as there are no specific provisions against the crime of incest in Pakistan's Penal Code. Incest is treated as any other rape, without any additional protection for the victim.

Many young victims are also deterred from coming forward, Bano suggests, especially because rape cases can be unusually slow to prosecute in Pakistan. Even if they do get in front of a court, they are often are encouraged, sometimes even by the judges, to settle the matter out of court for the honor of the family, through a process dubbed as "compromise," by accepting a sum of money in exchange for silence. This compromise, Bano says, has been the biggest challenge her organization faces in bringing the perpetrators to justice. After spending months working with the victim, in most cases, families "compromise," ensuring that the perpetrator is never convicted for his crime.