- By: Muzna Abdul Shakoor
One of the significant social problems still prevalent in Pakistan is domestic violence which has social acceptance. It still continues to a large extent, even with the support of the legal systems and information campaigns, according to the statistics, 70 – 90 % of Pakistani women experience some sort of abuse. This violence could be physical, but in many times, it is not physical only, but emotional and even psychological and for this reason, few people report such kinds of violence because the society does not support them.
Among the challenges faced during the policy formulation, it is possible to identify the problem of cultural acceptance of the use of force in a family. This mentality sustains abuse, as in the real life example of Qandeel Baloch, a social media celebrity who was killed by her brother in 2016 to preserve the family’s honor. Pakistan is a conservative society and does not support women’s rights; women are expected to bow and follow the orders of men in their lives. This issue not only rationalizes but also prolongs the violence against women, hence doing very little to enable them to overcome or avoid situations that enclose violence against them.
Inability to educate women makes them even more vulnerable being trapped by cultural beliefs and lack adequate knowledge of their rights and/or be forced to endure abusive relationships. Education of girls is not a priority in most of the rural areas and this keeps women more vulnerable. Coercive sexual relationships also keep women bound to their abusers because in most cases the women and children lack the necessary resources for survival even if they decide to leave the husband. Most of the women if not all of them do not have any form of personal source of income, most of them are housewives and are therefore financially dependent on their husbands, hence considered poor.
Other challenges that the women face include; There is no proper legal protection for the girl and woman, and they are afraid of stigma. Despite the fact that there are laws against domestic violence, their enforcement is usually very poor, besides, women experiencing violence also experience fetters to justice such as corruption and illiteracy of the law. The societal prejudice and the possibility of being isolated acts as a barrier for most women given that the perpetrators give the victims the blame. This victim-blaming mentality intensifies the suppression of women making it hard for them to seek help.
Under the taboos of family code in Pakistan, strong timely legal protections, raising awareness, and empowering women seem to be the solution for accountancy domestic violence. It also means efforts should focus on such strategies as changing the culture, community mobilization and raising awareness among people in order to avoid the constant cycle of abuse.
It would therefore be crucial to implement measures that target other domains of the society and the community in order to tackle the issue of domestic violence in Pakistan and thus the need to combine several efforts namely; education. In this way, community level education interventions can raise awareness of women’s rights and available resources and schools and community centres may contribute to gender equality and respect of women’s rights. Economic independence is also important; educated job creation and micro-credits for women shall assist them in attaining financial self-sufficiency and therefore escape the abuses. The other solution criteria is strengthening of legal frameworks. Domestic violence requires enforcement of the available laws, increased punitive measures for offenders and easy access to legal services. Training police personnel and judiciary personnel to handle such cases with dignity and demands can enhance justice system response.
Services that are designed to support survivors should be developed further, namely, the existing shelters and support centres which provide counselling, legal aid and vocational training. Other sources such as support groups and helpline numbers can also ensure that such victims receive a safe environment within which they can share their experiences or seek advice. Members of this society also have a crucial role to play beginning with altering attitudes in the society. Religious leaders, local politicians, and celebrities should come on board in order to help the society become more supportive to the victims. Television, radio and social media advertisements can influence people negatively and this can be rectified by coming up with positive models which portray positive traits of a particular gender. Last but not least, it is quite crucial to provide mental support for the victims in the processes of recovery. Finally, the support centres also incorporate counselling and therapy interventions in order to help victims recover from the traumatic events and be assisted to have normal lives again and avail the services to all the victims.
Pakistan does have laws to shield a female, but how often those rules are deployed in reality reflects another story due to multiple reasons. To begin with, implementation of these laws is often lax. Law enforcement agencies may not have the resources, training, or be otherwise willing to implement these statutes correctly. These are further influenced by culture embedded in patriarchy that often supersedes legal frameworks. For example, even though child marriage and honor killings are illegal, they continue to receive communities which value tradition.
The judicial system is also difficult. The system is not quick and neutral, and many a time cases of gender violence/discrimination do not get its due importance. All of this discourages women and girls from fighting against injustice. In addition, there is also misinformation about legal rights among girls and women, mainly in the rural areas. An absence of information stops them from pursuing justice or seeking assistance if their rights are infringed.
The problem is compounded by political inertia. Many countries fail to enforce or scale up the laws that safeguard girls and women because of a lack of political will. This means that many times the laws are in place, they are just not implemented and enforced. Secondly, the existence of both secular and religious legal orders leads to dichotomies in protecting the rights of girls. Those different legal systems can breed confusion and facilitate contradictory readings of the law, which can hinder maintaining reliable protection for girls across a given territory.
In sum, these factors culminate in the reality that girls have no real rule of law or legal rights in Pakistan despite the presence of laws protecting them. This entails not just changes in laws but sweeping social and educational programs that change attitudes along with educating girls, which make them stronger to raise their voice against oppression.
- Conclusion:
Domestic violence is one of the crucial social problems of the South Asian region, especially in Pakistan due to cultural suppression. There are laws and awareness campaigns in place, yet many women are left unheard because of the stigma, financial dilemma, and lack of support by the legislature. This situation is worsened by the fact that the society has been so wired to be patriarchal and this makes it easy for the man to justify the use of force when dealing with a woman. On this, there is a need for a multi-sectoral strategy which incorporates; increasing girls’ education, promotion of economic independence for women and enhancement of laws and policies protecting the rights of women.
Community based educational intervention can sensitize the people to cope with the rights of women and change the culture of toleration of wife battering. Besides, such measures as vocational training and micro financing empower women economically, and enable them to leave abusive relationships because they are financially independent. Moreover, it is also important to enforce these laws and educate the police and judicial system professionals as to how complied they must be to help the victims of crime.
Services that encourage women to report their incident such as shelters, counselling, and legal assistance should be provided and made available to those women to enable them to leave a life of a victim behind and create a new and better life for themselves. Other ways include community participation and media advocacy which can help change social norms while counselling helps the survivors to heal from the effects inflicted upon them. Thus, it is possible to highlight the following areas that enable Pakistan to build a society where every woman can feel protected and fight for her rights.
- References:
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/confronting-silent-crisis-domestic-violence-pakistan-hajra-ahmad-jokje/
- https://www.nchr.gov.pk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Domestic-Violence-Policy-Brief.pdf
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4768593/
- Status of Women in Pakistani Law – Legalversity