50 per cent of city’s sexual violence cases reported from East Zone, says report

As many as 50 per cent of the sexual violence cases were reported from the East Zone police stations precincts, according to the sexual and gender-based violence fact sheet from January 2020 to December 2021 issued by a Karachi-based non-governmental organisation, War Against Rape.

Of the total cases, 14 per cent were reported from Korangi Industrial Area, 10 per cent from Sachal, nine per cent from Zaman Town, six per cent each from Shah Faisal and Ibrahim Hyderi and five per cent from Korangi.

In out of the total investigated cases, 78 per cent survivors were less than 18 years of age and almost half the survivors were children under the age of 12. Ninety-one per cent of the sexual violence survivors were female while nine per cent of survivors were male. The data showed 64 per cent of cases were of rape, 21 per cent of gang rape, nine per cent of sodomy and six per cent of incest.

FIRs and MLEs

From January 2020 till September 2021, a total of 603 first information reports (FIRs) were registered in sexual violence cases in Karachi compared to 894 medico-legal examinations (MLEs) were conducted from January 2020 to June 2021 in alleged sexual assault cases in three major government hospitals, according to the WAR’s data collected from the Karachi police, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and Civil Hospital, Karachi.

WAR believed the major reasons that contributed to discrepancies between FIRs and MLEs in sexual violence cases were are lack of trust, cooperation, the biased and threatening attitude of the police towards victims and their families, fear of social stigma, shame, and guilt, the report said.

“It is also indicative of survivors not willing to engage with the justice system or due to the cases where the complainant attempted to report the crime but remained unable to get their FIRs lodged owing to the non-supportive behaviour of law enforcers,” WAR said in its report.

Various other factors behind underreporting of sexual violence cases include snail-paced and lengthy court proceedings and lack of awareness amongst survivors and their families.

Low conviction rate

The conviction rate in sexual violence cases was less than three per cent in Pakistan, WAR said. According to the data available and official statistics, out of the total rape incidents, only 22,037 rape cases were reported across the country in the past six years. However, WAR believed that these figures were only the tip of the iceberg, the actual figures were much higher than this.

Out of the total cases, 4,060 cases are pending in courts and only 77 accused had been convicted which comprised 0.3 per cent of the total figure and only 18 per cent of the cases had reached the prosecution stage. According to the report, only 41 per cent of rape cases were reported to the police due to social pressures and other procedural deterrents and gaps in the justice system.

Recommendations

In the report, WAR also gave some recommendations to the state, saying that it was important to ensure effective implementation of women and child protection law, including implementation of Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Ordinance 2020 and accountability mechanisms.

The organisation had urged the government to build the capacity of key state actors of the justice system, line government departments and other concerned stakeholders’ biannually on gender sensitisation, laws protecting women, children and transgender persons, the importance of behavior change and referral support mechanism to improve sexual gender-based violence (SGBV) response services.

For sustainable change and impact, build capacity of police officers to enhance their technical skills on evidence collection, including forensics and appropriate understanding for medico-legal requirements in the SGBV cases.

WAR also demanded of the Sindh government to fill medico-legal officers (MLOs) vacant posts on an urgent basis across the country and enhance their skills and build capacity on standardised best practices.

Notified copies of pro-women, children and transgender persons’ laws with Urdu and Sindhi translation should be shared with all the police stations across Sindh, the recommendation added.