KARACHI: The year 2008 proved to be the worst for women’s rights as 8,445 cases of violence against them were registered, human rights activist and Advocate Zia Awan revealed at the Madadgar Helpline office.
Zia, who is the president of Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid that runs Madadgar, an NGO dealing with cases of women and child abuse, said that the astonishing figures were tabulated after a lot of research with news reports from 26 national dailies.
He added, “This is just the tip of the iceberg as the figures reported sum up to hardly 10 percent of women’s abuse cases that take place within the confines of their homes and in public domain.”
The figures show a marked increase from the year 2000 when 2,476 cases were registered and from then on there has been an increase in the abuse of women. In a span of nine years, between 2000 and 2008, a total of 67,706 cases were reported.
Talking about the surge in such cases, Zia said, “All the institutions in Pakistan are crumbling including the administration, judiciary and police. There is lawlessness prevailing and this is leading to frustration while giving the perpetrators to gain strength.”
Zia further said, “A massive surgical operation of sorts is needed to weed out corruption from our society while providing protection to women.”
According to the Madadgar Database, a total of 8,445 women were victimized across Pakistan in 2008 with the Punjab province having the highest number of incidents with 4,953 cases, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan provinces with 2659, 548 and 285 cases, followed it respectively.
Talking about the lesser number of reported incidents in NWFP and Balochistan, Tehmina Shah of Madadgar said, “It’s not that these provinces are safer for women as compared to Punjab or Sindh. It’s completely the opposite as due to a tribal setup and age-old customs, women and children are reluctant to report abuses and hence the picture is altered.”
