Amid the increasing radicalisation of its youths, especially men, Pakistan’s institutional mechanisms are proving to be incapable of stopping crimes against women, a report said on Wednesday.
The report cited several recent cases to assert that the ugly heads of patriarchy who see women as objects who need to be kept under veils and always monitored are slowly taking over Pakistani society. Most recently on February 14, Lahore High Court (LHC) acquitted the prime suspect in the murder case of a model named Qandeel Baloch as the parties to the case had an agreement and the statements by the witnesses were retracted. Qandeel Baloch was strangulated to death by her brother, Muhammad Waseem, an honour killing on July 15, 2016, in Muzaffarabad.
Meanwhile, a recent report by the police in the Punjab province showed that around 41,000 women were reported as missing from the province in the last five years, with a staggering 3,571 of them unrecovered to this day. The scary situation with regard to women’s rights and safety in Pakistan has also been under the international radar, Islam Khabar said citing the Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) annual World Report 2022.
The HRW, in its Annual World Report 2022, documented allegations of extensive rights abuses against women along with children in Pakistan, which ranks 167 out of 170 countries on the Global Women, Peace and Security index released by Georgetown University. “Violence against women and girls, including rape, murder, acid attacks, domestic violence, and forced marriage, is endemic throughout Pakistan. Human rights defenders estimate that roughly 1,000 women are killed in so-called honour killings every year,” the HRW report stated.
According to Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey data of 2017-18, 28 per cent of women aged 15 to 49 years had experienced intimate partner violence in their lifetimes. The report stated that as domestic violence is an issue covered in secrecy and embarrassment, these figures are likely a gross under-estimation.
The report also talked about a recent law titled, ‘Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace (Amendment) Bill, 2022’, saying that the real test of this new law will be its full execution, which needs political will. Rights groups and various members of Pakistan’s civil society have been criticizing Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and his government, saying he panders to the religious right and excuses the perpetrators who attack women. He is known to be notorious while ‘demonizing’ women in every possible chance he gets.
Male supremacy prevails in the Pakistani society at all levels, yet their “honour” fails to match their masculinity in all other matters and remains extremely delicate, easily compromised by and exceedingly dependent upon their women’s modesty, the report commented.
The report comes when Pakistan has witnessed four horrific incidents against women in different parts of the country within a week, suggesting a serious rise in crime against women.