Pakistan'da Kadınlar İçin 'Güvenli Alan Yok': Dawn Hina Javed'i Anlattı

No safe place

ALL the pen and paper in the world are insufficient to describe the pain and torture inflicted on women. In Pakistan, all flat surfaces could be covered with stories of women who have been harassed, beaten, tortured and killed. Few women in the country can claim to have lived a life free from male harassment. Today, we mourn yet another woman. Hina Javed was married to Faisal Asghar, a former professor with an alleged history of harassment, less than a year ago. She was found dead in the bathroom of the apartment she shared with her husband. Evidence at the scene pointed to a possible hanging. According to the FIR filed by Hina’s brother, there was proof of much more than that. It is reported that Hina was found with her hands tied. A wire was around her neck and tied to the shower rod. She also had a cloth stuffed in her mouth. The post-mortem found that she had a broken neck and injuries to her ribs, hips and lips. The findings showed that she had been tortured. Blood pooled around her heart, and there appeared to be some evidence that she had been poisoned. The investigation is still underway. Hina’s husband has been arrested, and court proceedings are underway. Sadly, in this society, harassment of women is not taken seriously; women are seldom believed when they file complaints against their harassers or dangerous stalkers. It is no wonder that many of them are convinced that nothing will come of it, that, in fact, the victim will be blamed for inviting the attention of such criminals, who routinely include murderers. Even if such criminals are nabbed and arrested, they walk into court with no remorse, their chests outstretched, their sense of entitlement and arrogance preceding them. The tragedy is that so many of them are walking around Pakistan today. Judging from the regularity with which husbands, fathers and brothers torture or kill women, it can safely be said that millions of men in Pakistan think that they are justified in their role as judge, jury and executioner. Millions of Pakistani women suffer abuse. It is too late for Hina Javed. But there are millions of other Pakistani women who are enduring similar conditions and who could be saved from their torture. According to UNFPA, 28 per cent of all Pakistani women and 34pc of married women say they have experienced some form of physical and sexual violence. This number is likely to be an underestimation because most women never report any abuse to the authorities, as they fear more violence or being shamed in society. Because of this underreporting, the available numbers tell an incomplete story. A recent aggregation of public reports on the issue was conducted by the NGO Saahil, which found that the total number of cases involving gender-based violence was 7,071 in 2025. This was an increase from the 5,253 registered a year earlier, showing that even without secure reporting protections and infrastructure, the numbers are growing. As is always the case in Pakistan, a few media outlets and social media posts took note of the issue, and then it was buried. The core of this tragedy is two-pronged. The first is that family and sociocultural structures keep women in violent relationships. The second is that there are hardly any places where women in these situations can go to be assured of safety and secrecy. There are legal issues that make the provision of a haven for abused women difficult. Existing provisions in the law make it possible for courts to order that women be retur­ned to their legal gu­­a­rdians when, in fact, these very guardians may be the ones abusing the women in the first place. The ability of wo­­m­en to help other wo­­men is hindered by the fact that most live in family structures dominated by men where they are unable to help their friends, family or neighbours who they know are being abused. The result is cases like Hina Javed’s. It is heartening that First Lady Aseefa Bhutto has taken an interest in the case, and one hopes that justice is served. It would be even better for politicians like her to focus on the structural and practical issues that survivors of domestic violence in Pakistan face when they try to escape from their abusive situations. Laws should be strong enough to stop women from being treated as property that courts can order to be returned to the ‘owners’. At the very least, there is a need for a large number of well-funded shelters that can ensure both secrecy and safety for abused women. Safe places are necessary so that no more dead women are found strangled in bathrooms. The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy. rafia.zakaria@gmail.com Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2026