8.4 Violence against Women in Pakistan — Data, Causes and Challenges

Quick notes — start here

• Prevalence, police reports, helpline calls and media counts are different.
• A reported count passes through disclosure and recording filters.
• More reports can mean more violence, better reporting or both.
• Explain causes without blaming survivors.
• Check source, population and period before quoting a figure.
• Formal definition: GBV prevalence measures how widespread specified experiences are within a defined population and period. Police reports, service contacts and media-recorded incidents measure different processes.

Simple example: A new accessible complaint service may receive more reports in its first year. That increase alone cannot show that the service caused more violence. Survey evidence, repeated measures and information about reporting practices are needed to interpret the change.

Remember this sentence: Reported cases measure violence filtered through disclosure and recording; interpret the figures before drawing conclusions.

Check yourself: Give two different explanations for an increase in reported cases.

Detailed bullet notes and references

Plain-English explanation: A recorded count depends on violence, recognition, willingness and ability to report, institutional recording and classification. Rising reports can reflect worsening violence, improved reporting or both. Compare sources and methods before explaining a trend.

Critical point: The numerical register below was checked on 30 September 2026. It separates police records, NGO monitoring, helpline reports and the older PDHS survey. These have different coverage and cannot be combined into one prevalence measure.

Memory cue: INCIDENT → DISCLOSURE → RECORD; each is a filter. This is a study aid, not a scholarly framework.

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Data discipline: give source, observation year and coverage. Use “at least” only where justified by the source. Recorded incidents are not national prevalence.

Verified data — reporting year 2025

Source: HRCP, State of Human Rights in 2025, Key issues: Women, checked 30 September 2026. HRCP compiles several providers; the rows are not a single compatible dataset and must not be added together.

• Historical survey baseline: PDHS 2017–18, ever-married women aged 15–49: 28% experienced physical violence since age 15; 6% ever experienced sexual violence; 34% ever experienced physical, sexual or emotional spousal violence. National summary excludes AJK and GB. These are not 2025/2026 prevalence estimates. NIPS/ICF, summary p.15.
• Current global comparison: about 50,000 women and girls were killed by intimate partners or family members in 2024. The UN cautions that the difference from 2023's 51,100 largely reflects data availability, not demonstrated improvement. UNODC/UN Women, 2025 release.
• Interpretation: stigma, access to reporting, institutional recording and definitions all affect counts. Use “at least” only when the source presents a minimum; never add it automatically.

Historical background

• Practices like honour killing (karo-kari, siyah-kari) have deep tribal / customary roots that predate and continue alongside formal prohibition.
• Formal criminalisation of honour killing as murder (closing the "forgiveness" / qisas loophole) came via the Anti-Honour Killings Laws (Criminal Law Amendment) Act, 2016.

Settings

• Household and intimate relationships; community and workplace settings; interaction with police, courts and other institutions.
• Forms documented annually by HRCP: domestic violence, honour killing, rape, acid attacks, forced / child marriage, cyber-harassment.

Causes and reasons

• Patriarchal norms and son preference.
• Weak enforcement and barriers to prosecution; impunity.
• Harmful customary dispute-resolution practices (jirga).
• Economic pressure, poverty and household power relations.
• Stigma and fear surrounding reporting.
• Normalisation of abusive behaviour through social learning.

Challenges in addressing VAW

• Stigma, retaliation fears and pressure to settle disputes privately.
• Investigation capacity and insensitive handling of complaints.
• Delays and resource constraints in the justice system.
• Harmful customary dispute resolution outside formal legal safeguards.
• Legal debates about recognition and prosecution of abuse within marriage.

Conclusion

• Multi-level responses: review and implement laws; improve investigation and response capacity; support survivors and services; address social norms that discourage reporting. A law's effectiveness also depends on practical enforcement and access to justice.

Exam question

• Critically examine the causes of and challenges in addressing violence against women in Pakistan.

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🧪 Worked example — why official numbers mislead

• Case: a woman is beaten and does not report because she fears retaliation and the family pressures her to compromise.
• Result: no FIR is filed; the case never enters police statistics.
• Other distortions: rural incidents are less recorded; definitions differ across sources (HRCP compiles from media and police reports); pardon under qisas / diyat can end prosecution.
• How to write it: “HRCP's 2025 report, citing National Police Bureau data, records at least 470 women killed in honour-related crimes.” This is a recorded minimum, not a prevalence estimate. Source.

🧾 Model paragraph — causes

• "Violence against women in Pakistan is best explained by interacting causes: patriarchal norms and son preference; weak enforcement and impunity; customary dispute-resolution outside formal law; poverty and household power relations; stigma that discourages reporting; and the normalisation of abuse through social learning. Formal reform therefore succeeds only when paired with enforcement and norm change."

📝 Extra notes

• Causes vs challenges: causes explain why it happens; challenges explain why it is hard to address. Keep these lists separate in an answer.
• Survey vs administrative data: PDHS survey data differ from police-based records.

20-mark FPSC answer structure — 8.4

• Definition and scope: Violence against women in Pakistan must be analysed through types, settings, reporting patterns, social conditions and institutions.
  • Developed analytical point 1: Identify forms of domestic, honour-related, workplace and online violence with clear definitions.
  • Developed analytical point 2: Explain possible causal interactions among dependence, stigma, coercive control and unequal access to justice.
  • Developed analytical point 3: Distinguish incident counts from prevalence and identify each statistical source and year.
  • Developed analytical point 4: Compare risks and services across regions, classes and age or disability groups.
• Pakistan application: A rural survivor may have fewer safe reporting routes or transport options than someone near district services.
• Critical limitation: Do not claim every non-report results from the same reason or rely on unsourced numerical rankings.
• Past-paper links: 2016 Q3; 2023 Q8; 2025 Q2. 8.PYQ — Forms, causes, laws, violence theories & prevention (2016–2026).
• Conclusion: synthesise the cause–effect–response relation; do not finish with an unsupported generalisation.

✅ How to score

• Include dated numbers with sources, the under-reporting caveat and the causes/challenges split.

⚠️ Common mistakes

• Quoting a number without a year and source.
• Mixing causes and challenges.

❓ Active recall

• List four causes and four challenges separately.
• Why can the same source's numbers rise even if violence is not rising?

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Exam-ready answer — Violence against Women in Pakistan — Data, Causes and Challenges

Violence against women in Pakistan must be analysed through both social mechanisms and careful interpretation of evidence. Recorded incidents provide important information, but they do not automatically measure the full scale of violence.

Understanding the data

A police count depends on incidents occurring, people recognising and disclosing them, access to reporting and institutional recording. Helpline contacts and media reports measure still other processes. Survey prevalence estimates concern specified experiences within a defined population and period. These sources cannot simply be added together.

An increase in reported cases may reflect worsening violence, improved access to reporting or both. A trend therefore requires comparable methods and information about changes in disclosure and recording.

Causes and barriers

Unequal power, economic dependence, acceptance of coercion and weak accountability can interact to sustain violence. Stigma and fear may restrict help-seeking. These factors explain conditions surrounding harm; responsibility remains with perpetrators.

Improving understanding and response

Policy needs trustworthy, confidential data alongside accessible services and prevention. Evaluation should distinguish reporting access from changes in violence itself. Numerical claims must retain their source, reference period and definition, while analysis should recognise regional and social variation rather than treating one case as representative of the country.

Example and application

A new accessible complaint service may receive more reports in its first year. That increase alone cannot show that the service caused more violence. Survey evidence, repeated measures and information about reporting practices are needed to interpret the change.

Conclusion

Reported cases measure violence filtered through disclosure and recording; interpret the figures before drawing conclusions.