Fact-check: Disturbing child abuse clip originated in Iraq, not Pakistan
The incident was reported by Iraqi media, which stated that the father had been arrested by the police
Updated Saturday Nov 15 2025
Trigger Warning: Violence against a child
The following fact check discusses a video containing distressing footage of a young child being physically assaulted. Reader discretion is advised.
A viral video shows a man brutally beating a young child with a plastic hose. Social media users claim the incident occurred in Pakistan and have called on authorities to intervene.
The claim is false. The video was not filmed in Pakistan.
Claim
On November 4, a Facebook user shared a six-second video with a caption in Urdu reading: “Please share this clip as widely as possible so that this man is punished for what he did. Should a teacher behave like this?”
The clip shows a man hitting a young girl, who is cornered and crying in pain.
At the time of writing, the video had been viewed over 9,000 times on Facebook.
The claims also took off on X (formerly known as Twitter), Facebook and Instagram here, here and here.
Fact
The video is from Iraq, not Pakistan, and shows a father violently beating his daughter.
Geo Fact Check conducted a reverse image search of key frames from the video and traced the earliest upload to an account that posted it on October 30, identifying the man as being from Baghdad, Iraq.
The incident was also reported by Iraqi media outlets 964 Media and Hatha Alyoum English, both of which stated on October 30 that the father had been arrested by Rusafa police.
The news articles can be read here and here.
Verdict: The child-abuse video was not filmed in Pakistan. It originated in Baghdad, Iraq, where local authorities have arrested the father shown in the video.
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