Crime in the capital: Govt gets failing grades in human rights report

Rights violations data show more than a quarter involved women victims

ISLAMABAD:

The number of rape, child abuse and murder cases recorded during the year 2015 represent a worrying situation of human rights in the federal capital. The city, in all, witnessed 514 cases of human rights violations during last year.

Violence against women including acid burning and acid attacks, domestic violence, honour crimes and killings, and rape and gang rape – tops the list of crimes committed, says a report of the Ministry of Human Rights submitted to the parliament.

The incumbent government’s lack of required focus on curtailing human rights violations can be gauged from the fact that after assuming power in 2013, it merged the Ministry of Human Rights into Ministry of Law and Justice.

Due to the continuing poor state of rights violations in the country, in October 2015, Pakistan lost its seat in the top United Nations human rights body. This forced the government to restore Ministry of Human Rights in November 2015.

According to the ministry, out of a total of 514 cases of rights violations recorded last year some 144 were committed against women. It includes 68 cases of rape or gang rape, 10 cases of acid attacks or acid burning, 20 cases of honour crimes including honour killings, and 46 cases of domestic violence.

July 2015 was the worst in terms of crimes committed against women. During the month, 16 cases of rape and gang-rape were reported by the ministry besides nine cases of domestic violence, eight cases of honour crimes and killings.



Last year, 23 cases of child abuse were also recorded. In some cases, the children were gang raped.

Besides violence and sexual abuse against women and children, 35 cases of kidnappings, 53 cases of murder, 64 cases of torture, and 194 other acts of grave human rights violations were recorded.

One person also went missing during 2015.

Data available at the ministry’s website shows that the state of serious human rights violations in the federal capital reflects the overall situation of such crimes across the country.

In a period of one year, from July 2014 to June 2015, the ministry recorded a total of 950 incidents of violence against women across the country. Meanwhile, in Islamabad 144 such incidents were reported in 2015.

Human rights activist Farzana Bari contended that the actual number of incidents was significantly more than reported by the ministry.

“Unfortunately, after the crime is committed, the victim faces another kind of mental torture when police use dillydallying tactics to register first information report of the incident against the accused,” she said.

Although, during last several years, the parliament has passed a number of pro-woman legislation and introduced stringent punishments against culprits, there seems no respite from the increasing number of crimes against women.

Primarily, Bari said that it was because the government and institutions were reluctant to implement laws, especially laws related to crimes against women.

She said that the women were an easy target due to their fragile socio-economic status in Pakistan’s society.

To reduce crime against women, the activist said, we must empower women through education and other available means.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2016.