The Status of Women in Pakistan

"No nation can rise to the height of glory unless your women are side by side with you; we are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live."
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, 1944 (US Library of Congress report)

Gender relations in Pakistan rest on two basic perceptions: that women are subordinate to men, and that a man's honor resides in the actions of the women of his family. Thus, as in other orthodox Muslim societies, women are responsible for maintaining the family honor. To ensure that they do not dishonor their families, society limits women's mobility, places restrictions on their behavior and activities, and permits them only limited contact with the opposite sex. Space is allocated to and used differently by men and women. For their protection and respectability, women have traditionally been expected to live under the constraints of purdah (purdah is Persian for curtain), most obvious in veiling. By separating women from the activities of men, both physically and symbolically, purdah creates differentiated male and female spheres. Most women spend the major part of their lives physically within their homes and courtyards and go out only for serious and approved reasons. Outside the home, social life generally revolves around the activities of men. In most parts of the country, except perhaps in Islamabad, Karachi, and wealthier parts of a few other cities, people consider a woman--and her family--to be shameless if no restrictions are placed on her mobility.

In addition to that, women in Pakistan face all kinds of gross violence and abuse at the hands of the male perpetrators, family members, and state agents. Multiple forms of violence include rape, domestic abuse as spousal murder, mutilation, burning and disfiguring faces by acid, beatings, ritual honor-killings, and custodial abuse and torture.

According to a report by Amnesty International, several hundred women and girls die each year in so-called “honor-killings” in Pakistan, in a backdrop to government inaction. She is killed like a bird in family feuds to create evidence of “illicit” connections and cover them under the garb of “grave and sudden provocation” to escape severe punishment. Even as the world entered in 21^st century, traditional modes of violence against women continued to govern. Despite making up almost one half percent of the population, women continued to face a discriminatory status within Pakistan. Most alarmingly, it was found that violence against them, in almost every form, was on the rise. Honor killings were reported across the country, while more women then ever before fell victim to crime such as rape, burning and murder, other committed suicide mainly as a result of pressure arising from a social system. Which still denies them justice or an equal status in day to day life.(State of Human Rights in 2000: 173,177)          

As far as domestic violence is concerned, it is the most under-reported crime because it is generally condoned by social customs and considered as a private family matter.