Why laws against violence fail in Pakistan: Influence and impunity stall justice for women

Feudal structures, entrenched elites shield abusers, leaving women to navigate a system stacked against them

Mushfiq Ahmed

KARACHI, Pakistan (MNTV) — When Uzma Noorani, who runs Panah Shelter Home for women in Karachi, speaks about violence against women in Pakistan, she begins not with police, laws, or courts — but with the men who dominate the country’s power structure. 

“Look at the assemblies,” she says in an interview with Muslim Network TV that coincides with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25. “They are filled with feudals. As long as these feudals stay in power, real change cannot come.”

Her critique is blunt. Feudal and tribal elites, she argues, shape the very mindset that governs the treatment of women — from Parliament to the police station. They block awareness, suppress rights, and reinforce a rigid social order in which women’s bodies remain controlled and their voices dismissed.

Uzma recalls the notorious Balochistan tragedy where five women were buried alive. “A senator defended it, saying outsiders should not interfere in their culture,” she says. 

“We raised our voices in the National Assembly. Honour killings or burying women alive is not our culture.” The incident, for her, embodies the deep resistance of entrenched power structures to any challenge, whether legal or moral.

“Laws exist,” she says. “But implementation requires political will — and that is missing.” Until the country confronts the power relations beneath its institutions, she warns, women will continue to suffer despite legislation meant to protect them.

Laws on paper, silence in practice

Like Uzma, Moniza Kakar, a lawyer and rights activist, begins by pointing to a gap — not of legislation, but of knowledge and access. 

She describes a case where a man manipulated a woman with promises of marriage, took money, then vanished. Under Pakistani law, she notes, having sexual relations under the false promise of marriage is considered rape. “But ordinary women don’t know that,” she says.

For Moniza, the fundamental crisis is not the absence of law but the absence of awareness. Women do not know their rights. They do not know how to file complaints. They do not know that harassment on social media, non-consensual sharing of photos, blackmail — all of these already fall under existing legal protections.

“The government must work on awareness,” she insists. Harassment committees — where they exist — need trained women judges and active oversight. Similar committees for gender-based violence, established from federal to district level, could transform women’s access to justice.

The problem is neither theoretical nor recent. 

Sharmila Farooqi, a politician, stresses that reported cases are rising not because violence has increased, but because women have begun to break generations of silence. “Earlier, women stayed inside their homes. Today’s woman speaks for herself, for her daughter, for others. She asserts her rights.”

But even when women come forward, the system fails to punish abusers. “This is the biggest challenge we face in courts,” she says. If conviction rates improve, violence will fall. Until then, perpetrators act with impunity, knowing they will likely walk free.

Samreen Ahmed of Jamaat-e-Islami echoes Moniza but grounds her critique in governance rather than awareness. “Violence doesn’t stop because laws exist,” she says. “Implementation is everything.”

Samreen offers a simple comparison: in Karachi, surveillance cameras changed behaviour almost overnight. People behaved differently when they believed the law would actually be enforced.

But the deeper issue, she argues, is systemic: “Only four thousand elite individuals control the entire country. Nothing happens unless they want it. They have kept 250 million people suppressed.” Until the state asserts its writ over private power, even the best legislation will remain symbolic.

Reporting increases — but convictions do not

For former Deputy Speaker Shahla Raza, the gap between complaint and conviction is the heart of the crisis. She has seen both the courage of victims and the paralysis of the system.

Two young women once approached her — one carrying a small child — their faces burned. She ensured they received medical treatment, but what the courts eventually did remains unknown. “Their families’ only dream was: let our daughters’ faces heal,” she says. Justice did not even appear to be a possibility.

Another case unfolded on Chand Raat (the night before Eidul Fitr). She stayed at the police station until 4:30 AM to ensure the perpetrator’s arrest. “He was arrested,” she says. “But still, nothing meaningful happened in court.”

The obstacles, according to Shahla, are predictable: weak prosecutors, weak policing and slow procedures. Reporting has increased — and that, she says, is good. But the system has not evolved with the courage of its citizens.

“The real issue is the failure of convictions.”