12 women raped daily on average: report

According to The News, War Against Rape (WAR), an advocacy organisation, published a report based on data taken from Punjab Home Department and Ministry of Human Rights which reveals that 21,900 women were raped in the province between 2017 and 2021. This indicates that an average of 12 women were raped daily or one woman assaulted every two hours.

However, as per the organisation, this number is only representative of a small portion as many cases are not reported due to stigma, fear, victim-blaming, and systemic biases in the justice system.

18 per cent of women are subjected to early and forced marriages. There are about 19 million child brides at the moment. Sindh has legalised marriage for boys and girls at 18 while other provinces have set the age for girls at 16.

Karachi
As per the police surgeon’s office in Karachi, there were 3,649 cases of domestic violence reported in 2022.

WAR team investigated 66 cases of different forms of sexual violence from July 2022 to June 2023.

The News highlighted statistics from the report: 44 survivors were children under 18 years with the most vulnerable age group being 4-11 years; the average age of survivors was only 13 years, with the youngest survivor being mere four years old; and of these cases, 85 per cent involved women and female children.
A total of 35 of the 66 cases were of rape, 11 were gang rape cases, another 11 were attempted rapes, and nine involved incest.

Additionally, in 10 cases, boys were also victims while 12 children were murdered after being subjected to sexual violence, including nine girls and three boys.

Korangi has been deemed a red alert zone as it has the highest sexual violence cases with 31 per cent, followed closely by Surjani Town with 30 per cent of reported cases.

The Saeedabad area reported 11 per cent of the cases, Iqbal Market nine per cent, Orangi Town seven per cent, Mehmoodabad six per cent and Gulshan-e-Iqbal reported five per cent of the cases of sexual violence.

Cases underreported
The official data from three major public hospitals of Karachi revealed the conduction of 1,256 medico-legal examinations (MLEs) in sexual assault cases from January 2021 to December 2022 whereas only 499 first information reports (FIRs) were filed in this same duration.

WAR report stated: “This underscores the urgent need for improved mechanisms to encourage survivors to report incidents. In the first six months of 2023, Pakistan witnessed a harrowing increase in child sexual abuse cases, with an average of 12 children sexually abused daily, totalling 2,227 cases. The comparison with 2021-22 data shows a disturbing upward trend in child sexual abuse cases.”

Workplace harassment
The News highlights that the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat for Protection Against Harassment (FOSPAH) reveals that more than 2,000 complaints were filed between 2018 and 2022 in the government sector and around 1,400 cases in the private sector, involving both men and women.

“Due to harassment, a large number of complainants end up leaving their jobs or normalising the harassment and hostile work environment. This discourages women from entering the workforce and restricts them from reaching financial independence”