Pakistan has been executing nearly one person a day after it resumed the death penalty following the December 2014 Peshawar school massacre, in which Pakistani Taliban insurgents killed 150 people, including 134 children.

In the aftermath of the attack, Pakistan announced it would lift a six-year-moratorium on the death penalty in order to curb terrorism in the country.

Since then, dozens of people, including child offenders, have been executed amid growing international concern. Human rights groups have warned that several death sentences are in breach of both domestic and international laws and that inmates often confess after being tortured.

In March, the United Nations urged Pakistan to reinstate the moratorium as there is no scientific proof that the death penalty serves as a deterrent or contributes to combating crime or violent extremism.

IBTimes UK spoke with Kate Higham, from the death penalty team at Reprieve, on the escalation of executions and the need to reinstate a moratorium on capital punishment to avoid human rights abuses.

In June, Pakistan executed Aftab Bahadur amid international outrage. Bahadur was arrested and sentenced to death at the age of 15 in 1993, and was executed even after his lawyer tried to introduce new evidence that could prove his innocence.

As with Bahadurs case, the death sentence handed to Shafqat Hussain has also drawn international criticism. Hussain, still on the death row, was sentenced to death in 2004 for allegedly kidnapping and killing a seven-year-old boy.

Hussain, who was 14 at the time of the sentence, was granted a last-minute reprieve in March and in June 2015, when Pakistan stayed the execution following the intervention from human rights groups, which warned Hussain had confessed to killing the boy after being tortured in his jail.