- Updated October 24, 2023
Years Listed
Each shaded box corresponds to a year the country appeared on the CSPA list and what types of waivers it received, if any.
Pakistan appeared on the CSPA list in 2021. The U.S. president fully waived CSPA prohibitions against the provision of U.S. arms sales and military assistance to Pakistan, resulting in the provision of more than $2.6 million in International Military Education and Training in FY2022.
Since 2021, U.S. presidents have been required to include justifications for CSPA waivers that were issued during the previous year in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Pakistan’s 2021 waiver justification maintained that “[s]ecurity assistance to Pakistan subject to the CSPA restriction supports critical U.S. objectives of promoting regional stability and counterterrorism in South Asia” and “protects U.S. national security by helping maintain a system of end-use authorization monitoring and technical security for equipment, which the United States has already provided to Pakistan, such as F-16s and affiliated ammunitions.”
According to the U.S. State Department, the Pakistani government has provided material support to non-state armed groups that recruit and use child soldiers. Militant groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan kidnap, buy, recruit, and coerce children into their ranks and force them to spy, fight, and conduct suicide attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In 2019, the Pakistani military announced it would bring more than 30,000 religious schools under government control, some of which were used by non-state armed groups to forcibly recruit child soldiers. Since at least April 2020, however, the government did not report investigating, prosecuting, or convicting individuals involved in child soldiering offenses.
For more information, see the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report and Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. More information on the situation in Pakistan can also be found in the UN Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict’s annual report.
Total Waived and Prohibited
Since the CSPA took effect.
Explore the Data
Country- and program-level data on the number and type of national interest waivers granted, as well as the amount of arms sales and military assistance waived.
