Pakistan turned 78 this year – a moment to celebrate a nation that has seen remarkable milestones: becoming a nuclear power, lifting the Cricket World Cup, building an elite air force with unrivaled air dominance, sending satellites into space, contributing to global peacekeeping missions and producing world-renowned poets, artists, and scientists.
But, while the nation has triumphed in many arenas, its women and girls continue to face violence, discrimination and systemic neglect. The 78th year of independence, therefore, does not only symbolise resilience and achievement but also forces the world to witness the ongoing struggle of Pakistan’s most vulnerable and the urgent need to address violence against women and girls.
Now is the time we need to be candid on what we have gained and lost in this journey. What can be expected in a society where a sitting prime minister encouraged misogyny by suggesting in an interview that the rise in rape and assault cases in the country was to be blamed on how women dressed and behaved.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres recently stated that the “poison of patriarchy is back with a vengeance”, and Pakistan takes the honour of finding itself at the forefront of this vengeance. There is no denying the fact that patriarchy harbours systemic misogyny parading as normalised societal conduct to keep our social order entwined in a battle against this hidden peril. It’s a show of power and control to silence women and girls.
Seventy-eight years later, the question still hangs heavy like the stench from our exposed gutters: What about women and girls? The 78th year of Pakistan’s independence has been nothing less than a death sentence for its women and girls. We’ve seen it all unravel – rapes and gang rapes, marital rape, honour killings, digital executions, child-abuse and torture. Every morning brings fresh horror, each case trying to outdo the last in sheer brutality. Violence against women and girls is on the rise, and the incidents are increasingly savage in nature.
Our women and girls are not safe in their own homes, and yet we celebrated August 14 with fanfare and gusto. We have vehemently betrayed every ideal Mohammad Ali Jinnah once stood for. In 1944, at Aligarh Muslim University, Jinnah warned: “We are victims of evil customs. It is a crime against humanity that our women are shut up within the four walls of the houses as prisoners. There is no sanction anywhere for the deplorable condition in which our women have to live”. Eight decades later, we have not just ignored him but perfected the very anti-women customs he abhorred.
Media reports say that in 2024 alone, Pakistan saw over 5,000 rapes, more than 500 honour killings, and upwards of 2,000 domestic violence cases. Convictions? Barely two per cent. Congratulations to us: we’ve become overachievers in barbarism, cruelty and injustice.
We are no longer merely patriarchal. We’ve evolved into something far uglier: a nation that actively despises its women and girls. If they survive female infanticide, we choke their futures with denied education. We marry them off into homes where marital rape and dowry torture are death sentences in slow motion.
If they dare choose their own partners, we unleash our champions of ‘honour’ to pull the trigger in neat formation. And if – heaven forbid – a woman beats a system meticulously designed to keep men in charge, we strip her of family, leave her to rot unnoticed, or simply shoot her in her own home for rejecting a man’s advances. We are a nation quick to deliver so-called ‘justice’ to women in the name of honour, but leave rapists and murderers languishing in legal limbo untouched because we lack the judicial backbone to sentence them.
So, on our 78th anniversary, let’s call a spade a spade. We are not a patriarchal society. We are a misogynistic nation – surrounded by these forms of violence in homes and public spaces – and we have the bloodied track record to prove it. And yes, every now and then we roll out shiny new Bills to impress the world, ticking boxes on our promises to protect women. They serve their purpose – a neat little performance to hoodwink the international community into believing we want our women to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with men. Or at least, that’s the story we tell ourselves.
As Pakistani women’s rights activists, we have a few questions for our readers and those in power: Where is your outrage? Where is the full stop to this relentless misogyny? What concrete steps are the government and judiciary taking to end this violence that knows no bounds?
Pakistan stands 148th out of 148 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2025. Tell us: what exactly are you celebrating this year?
Zainab Ali Khan is co-founder of Every Woman.
Farwa Zafar is a coalition member of Every Woman.