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years of age.
Violence against women
Incidents of violence against women continued to be reported from across
the country. The Taliban attack on Malala Yousafzai in Swat and a number of
other attacks also highlighted the risks associated with working for women’s
rights.
In July, Farida Afridi, Executive Director of a women’s rights organisation
Society for Appraisal and Women Empowerment in Rural Areas (SAWERA),
located in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), was shot dead
outside her home by two armed men on a motor bike. She had reportedly been
facing threats for working to help women and her murderers were believed to
be affiliated with extremist elements in the region.
In the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the neighboring FATA region,
women and all those who worked to further the rights of women faced threats.
In May, an influential religious cleric in Kohistan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
warned female NGO workers against entering Kohistan and threatened to
forcibly marry violators to local men. The government did not take any measures
to take the cleric to account for issuing the threat.
The Acid Throwing and Burn Crime Bill 2012 was submitted to the National
Assembly in December 2012 as a private member’s bill. Rather a comprehensive
bill, it covered the process of reporting, investigation, collecting medical
evidence, compensation for rehabilitation, and protection for the victim and
the witnesses. After the bill was submitted to the National Assembly, it was
sent to the relevant ministries for comments, which never came. This bill was
expected to be presented again soon after the budget session, but that did not
happen. The provincial assemblies were also pushed by the civil society to
table this bill, but none of the assemblies had taken the initiative in this regard
by the end of the year.
Honour killings
The so-called honour killings remained the most consistent and abhorrent
form of violence against women in Pakistan. According to media monitoring
by HRCP, as many as 913 girls and women were killed in the name of honour
in 2012. These included at least 99 minor girls. The number of victims of
these attacks was believed to be higher than the figures suggested because of
gaps in reporting. Out of the 913 victims of honour killings, at least 604 were
killed after being accused of having illicit relations with men, often without
any proof; 191 were killed because they had married according to their own
choice and against their families’ wishes. The incidents were not confined to
the majority faith. At least seven Hindu and six Christian women also fell
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State of Human Rights in 2012