Violence against women should never be considered a private home matter; it is and always will be a criminal matter. PHOTO: FILE
According to a local NGO, certain types of crimes against women have risen at perturbing rates. There has been a 144 per cent increase in burning incidents, an 89 per cent increase in acid crime, a 62 per cent increase in domestic violence and an 11 per cent increase in murder. Most cases of violence against women are reported from Punjab. However, the numbers from all provinces are reprehensible and should prompt law-enforcement and lawmaking agencies to take better measures for the protection of women all across Pakistan.
There are several ways to interpret this data. First, we know that many cases of violence against women go unnoticed and unreported; women in the other provinces might be more oppressed and more fearful than women in Punjab, who might have better access to the police. Secondly, because Punjab has the highest population of any province, it would statistically make sense that most cases are reported from that province. On the other hand, it might just be that Punjab tends to be more violent towards women and has higher rates of aggression than the other provinces. Even though the report says that overall cases of violence have gone down, eliminating violence against women altogether is a daunting task if we consider the steep rises in certain types of violence. The government should take immediate action to formally monitor and deal justice to those women who are victimised or are vulnerable.
Violence against women should never be considered a private home matter; it is and always will be a criminal matter and hence of public interest, as the public should know who is threatening and harming a person’s well-being unnecessarily, be it a family member or friend of the victim. When a person’s security is compromised, those who are in charge of each person’s well-being should be expected to promptly take action, as is strongly urged in light of this report. We must collectively aim for these horrendous statistics to go down. Women require equal treatment on a par with men and until the perpetrators of violence against women are made examples out of for the entire country, we should fear that these gruesome acts of crime will only increase.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 2nd, 2013.
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This is a wrong information...........these kinds of things only happens in India..........
The subject is very serious.There are many interrelated aspects to the issue -- domestic violence; sexual assault; sexual harassment; hate crimes across lines of gender, sexuality and race. But in pakistan one can say that the gender bias against women and children results from society's attitudes toward women and efforts to "keep women in their place." Laws have to be made which give equal rights to women generally, but particularly when it involves violence. The tragedy of the matter is that the close relatives are the culprits. To say that it is a world problem would be ignoring the fact that women in west who fight against brutal men are protected by law and know that the accused will be forced to support them financially and would not lose their status, unlike Pakistan where even the parents of abused encourage their daughters to put up with evil husbands.