Published: 04:45 PM, 08 September 2025
WAF: Pakistan plagued by honour killings, gender violence
More women in Pakistan are demanding an end to gender-related violence (AFP)
Gender-based violence continues to cast a long and harrowing shadow across Pakistan, exposing not only the vulnerability of women but also the systemic failure of institutions meant to protect them.
The Women Action Forum (WAF) in Pakistan’s Hyderabad recently released its 2021–24 report titled “Counting the Wounds,” and its findings reveal a grim reality that persists despite decades of advocacy, promises of reform, and fleeting moments of outrage.
The report documents 2,564 cases of gender-based violence in Sindh during the three-year period, underscoring a relentless cycle of abuse, impunity, and cultural complicity.
A disturbing count of violence
The sheer volume of cases in Sindh alone is staggering. Between 2021 and 2024, WAF recorded thousands of incidents of violence against women, ranging from domestic abuse and forced marriages to so-called honour killings.
WAF itself remained engaged in around 70% of these cases, highlighting the degree to which civil society, rather than the state, has had to shoulder the burden of advocacy and intervention.
What emerges from this tally is not merely a record of violence, but a record of silence—of the countless more cases that go unreported, buried beneath fear, stigma, or familial pressure. If 2,564 cases could be documented by a single watchdog in just one province, the true scale nationwide is almost unimaginable.
Women left unprotected
The report’s findings make it clear that women in Sindh, and across Pakistan, continue to feel unprotected, abandoned by a government that has shown little seriousness in addressing gender-based violence.
Laws exist on paper, but their implementation remains weak, inconsistent, and often compromised by patriarchal structures embedded within law enforcement and judicial systems.
Women facing threats frequently have no faith in turning to the authorities. Instead of safety, they often encounter negligence, victim-blaming, or outright hostility.
The absence of meaningful institutional support means that for many women, escaping cycles of abuse or resisting forced marriages is nearly impossible.
The state’s indifference is perhaps best encapsulated in the absence of effective shelters, legal aid, or protection mechanisms. Each headline of another honour killing or brutal attack reads as both an individual tragedy and an indictment of systemic inertia.
Police as complicit actors
WAF’s report does not mince words when it comes to the role of law enforcement. It found that defective investigation practices have turned the police into partners in crime rather than protectors of victims.
Cases are mishandled, evidence is ignored, and in some instances, investigators actively side with perpetrators.
This complicity stems from more than incompetence—it reflects the embedded patriarchal biases of a system where violence against women is often trivialised or dismissed as “family matters.”
Police officers, themselves products of the same social fabric that condones violence in the name of honour, frequently approach cases with apathy or tacit approval.
This failure of law enforcement reinforces a cycle where perpetrators know they are unlikely to face real consequences.
Instead of acting as a deterrent, the justice system becomes an enabler, creating an environment where crimes against women are not aberrations but expected outcomes.
Family as the perpetrator
Perhaps the most chilling revelation of the report is that in 90% of the documented cases, perpetrators were members of the victim’s own family.
This stark statistic dismantles the notion of “home” as a place of safety. For many women in Pakistan, danger comes not from strangers but from fathers, brothers, husbands, or cousins.
So-called honour killings exemplify this brutal reality.
Women accused of tarnishing family “honour”—whether through choosing their own partner, seeking independence, or even being seen in public with a man—are subjected to violence at the hands of those meant to protect them.
These killings are not isolated incidents but manifestations of a deeply ingrained culture that treats women as property and custodians of family reputation.
When families themselves are the perpetrators, women have nowhere to turn.
The police, already negligent, often refuse to intervene in what they consider “private” matters.
Communities, too, frequently rally around the perpetrators under the guise of preserving honour or tradition.
The result is a suffocating culture of impunity where women’s lives are continually sacrificed to uphold patriarchal norms.
A relentless cycle
The 2,564 cases documented in Sindh represent not just acts of violence but evidence of a relentless cycle that Pakistan has failed to break.
Advocacy groups raise alarms, civil society mobilises, and the media reports sporadically on horrific cases. Yet once the headlines fade, the underlying conditions remain unchanged.
The violence repeats itself because the structures that enable it remain intact.
Cultural attitudes that glorify male control and female subservience continue to dominate households and communities.
Institutions tasked with protecting women remain weak, compromised, or indifferent.
Laws exist in name, but their enforcement falters in practice. And so, each year, more women are killed, abused, or silenced under the same old pretexts.
The wider picture
While the WAF report focuses on Sindh, it is emblematic of a nationwide crisis.
Across Pakistan, reports of gender-based violence—from forced conversions and acid attacks to domestic abuse and rape—surface with numbing regularity.
The country ranks near the bottom globally in measures of gender equality, a reflection of systemic discrimination that cuts across class, region, and ethnicity.
The persistence of honour killings, in particular, highlights the depth of the problem.
Despite international condemnation and domestic legislation declaring the practice illegal, hundreds of women are murdered each year in the name of honour.
The gap between law and enforcement remains vast, and in many cases, families exploit legal loopholes to pardon perpetrators within the same household.
The implications of this crisis stretch beyond individual tragedies.
Violence against women destabilises communities, perpetuates cycles of poverty, and hinders social progress.
A society where half the population lives under constant threat cannot claim stability or justice. Yet Pakistan continues to ignore this truth, allowing violence to fester unchecked.
A bleak continuum
The WAF report, titled “Counting the Wounds,” is aptly named. Each case recorded is a wound not only on the victim but on the collective conscience of the nation.
The accumulation of thousands of such wounds over three years illustrates the depth of a crisis that is not diminishing but escalating.
What makes the findings most haunting is the sense of inevitability.
Without institutional will to protect women, without accountability for perpetrators, and without cultural shifts to challenge the very notion of honour-based violence, the cycle appears endless.
The names of victims change, the circumstances vary, but the pattern repeats with numbing regularity.
Haunting numbers, unbroken silence
The Women Action Forum’s documentation of 2,564 cases of gender-based violence in Sindh between 2021 and 2024 is not just a report; it is an indictment.
It indicts a society that continues to tolerate violence against women, a government that fails to act with seriousness, and institutions that actively or passively enable perpetrators.
The relentless cycle of honour killings and gender violence in Pakistan is not an aberration but a structural reality. It reflects a culture where women’s lives remain expendable, their rights negotiable, and their safety perpetually under threat.
>> Source: European Times
