Pakistan’s treatment of women goes beyond gender inequality, indicating a wider failure to safeguard basic human rights. Despite official attempts to show progress, women in Pakistan face issues like forced marriages and “honour killings.” The gap between rhetoric and reality is stark, as highlighted by European analyst Dimitra Staikou.
Staikou emphasized that the lack of women’s rights protection hampers sustainable development and weakens social and economic progress. Recent incidents, such as a tragic building collapse in Rahim Yar Khan that claimed lives, underscore the vulnerability of women even in supposed aid programs. Another incident involved a young woman in Punjab murdered for rejecting a forced marriage, revealing a disturbing trend of limited local response to such crimes.
An analysis by the Pakistani newspaper ‘Dawn’ revealed troubling misinterpretations of concepts like consent in courts, leaving rape victims without proper justice. Pakistan’s low ranking in the Global Gender Gap Report 2025, with only 56.7% of the gender gap closed, reflects the exclusion of women from economic and political spheres. International bodies like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also noted significant barriers to justice and pervasive gender-based violence in Pakistan.
Staikou pointed out that the issue in Pakistan is not a lack of awareness or international pressure but a genuine lack of political will to address gender inequality effectively.
