25,935 GBV cases reported last year

Islamabad : Data collected by Gender Crime Cell (GCC) of National Police Bureau (NPB) records 25,935 cases of gender-based violence (GBV) reported in the country in the year 2020 as compared to 28,095 reported cases in 2019. The trend analysis shows that there is a slight decline in crime cases of GBV in 2020 (48%) compared to 2019 (52%).

The statistics were shared with the stakeholders at the soft launch of GCC’s first ever bi-annual report “Gender Based Violence Report 2019-2020.” The report broadly focuses on various categories gender-based violence and has been compiled on the basis of primary data on gender related crimes available with NPB and collected from all police organizations across the country.

The report was launched by the Director General NPB Wajid Zia that was prepared by the Director GCC Azhar Rasheed with joint collaboration of Parliamentarians Commission for Human Rights (PCHR). The event was attended by civil society representatives, human rights activists and media. The participants gave their input on the soft version of report before its formal launch in the coming month.

According to 2020 official data, 19,388 GBV cases were reported in Punjab, 4,005 in Sindh, 1,548 in KP, 601 in Balochistan, 137 in Islamabad, 23 in Gilgit-Baltistan and 231 in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. The highest cases were counted for kidnapping (12,890 cases) followed by rape (3,887), beating (2019) and murder (1,596 cases). The data also indicates that Punjab has the highest number of reported cases, making 85% of the total cases.

“In Punjab, highest number of cases were reported mainly due reasons such as high population ratio, education level, better awareness etc. For Police department, high number of reported cases is a sign that more people are informed and approaching law enforcement mechanisms,” said DG NPB, Wajid Zia, while addressing the event.

“Through this report, an endeavour has been put in place to provide authentic and verifies statistics on reported crimes relating to GBV that will go a long way in fulfilling the thirst of researchers, in public as well as private departments, for reliable data. It shall support and assist in monitoring of various gender related issues coupled with National and provincial indicators of gender related offences in a society. It will also help augmenting the policy development process and devise strategies to develop action plans for improving response of criminal justice actors to issues and cases of GBV,” he added. He expressed hope that the report would have far-reaching impact in countering issues of violence in the country and would also afford guidelines to the policy makers for furtherance law-making in this direction.

GCC Director Azhar Rasheed Khan highlighted various aspects of the research as key speakers. He said that besides providing authentic reported evidence on GBV, the report also provides a comparative analysis of regional and national perspectives on SDG 5 besides discussing the linkages between SDGs outcomes and targets which reflects the score of Pakistan in eradicating GBV versus the global score on the same. He said that the report also looked into the legal framework at national level in order to counter GBV and address the discrimination.

PCHR Executive Director Shafiq Chaudhry appreciated the efforts of GCC and emphasized that such report may be issued regularly. He promised to strengthen the institutional support to GCC for its future research activities. He said that the hard launch of the report would be made soon after incorporating the input of the participants, attending the launching ceremony.