Pakistan's Sindh witnesses rise in gender-based violence cases: Report

Islamabad, Aug 4 Pakistan's Sindh province has witnessed a sharp increase in gender-based violence cases, the Women Action Forum (WAF) said in its 2021-24 report on gender-based violence in the province.

In the report titled ‘Counting the wounds’, the WAF said that 2,564 gender-based violence cases were reported in Sindh, marking a steady rise in such cases. Pakistan's leading daily Dawn reported that the WAF remained engaged in 70 per cent of the total cases, monitoring data gathered through print, electronic and social media.

Rights activists, journalists, development sector activists and academicians attended the gathering. During the event, the participants voiced concern regarding the increase in gender-based violence cases, including suicide, murder, honour killing, harassment.

According to the WAF, women did not feel protected due to government's non-serious approach towards the rise in such cases while the police also became a partner in the crime due to defective probe in such cases. In 90 per cent of the cases, people who were behind the crime belonged to victim's family.

While sharing figures, WAF leader Amar Sindhu stated that cases of honour killing have significantly increased which was a matter of concern and that the accused were from women’s family in majority of the cases.

Arfana Mallah said these were not just figures but 'wounds' on smiling faces. She stated that police did not lodge FIRs of victims. She further said, "Only the SSP concerned would respond to such nature of crime, and finally the officer also withdraws from pursuing it. Only SHOs prevail in these cases."

Haseen Massarat said that the sexual abuse among underage girls was also witnessing increase. She accused the police of leaving victims at the mercy of media for a 'trial' and mentioned that men were least interested to hear about ordeal of abused women.

Poet Khalida Munir said that a large number of women committed suicide in 2023. She mentioned that women are being killed on the pretext of marriage even today.

Shahnaz Sheedi said that women were not treated as human beings but regarded as animals in Pakistan's society. Ismail Kumbhar, Suleman Abro, Ghurfrana Arain of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), Ramesh Kumar Gupta and others also expressed their views on the issue.

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