ISLAMABAD - Women security is threatened in the conflict zones in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) as discriminatory legislation and dysfunctional criminal justice system have put women at grave risk.
This was stated in a report titled ‘Woman, Violence and Conflict in Pakistan’ compiled by International Crisis Group (ICG) released on Wednesday.
It said that eight years into its democratic transition, violence against women is still endemic in Pakistan, amid a climate of impunity and state inaction. Targeted by violent extremists with an overt agenda of gender repression, women’s security is especially threatened in the conflict zones in KP province and the militancy-hit Fata.
In its Asia report, the ICG said that on March 8, International Women’s Day, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed that his government would take all necessary legislative and administrative steps to protect and empower women. “If this pledge was in earnest, his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government should repeal unjust laws, countering extremist threats, particularly in KP and FATA, and involving women and their specially relevant perspectives in design of state policies directly affecting their security, including strategies to deal with violent extremist groups,” it added.
Women in the past were the principal victims of state policies to appease violent extremists. After democracy’s return, there has been some progress, particularly through progressive legislation, much of it authored by committed women’s rights activists in the federal and provincial legislatures, facilitated by their increased numbers in parliament. Yet, according to the report, the best of laws will provide little protection so long as social attitudes toward women remain biased, police officers are not held accountable for failing to investigate gender-based crimes, the superior judiciary does not hold the subordinate judiciary accountable for failing to give justice to women survivors of violence, and discriminatory laws remain on the books.
Laws, many remnants of General Zia-ul-Haq’s Islamisation in the 1970s and 1980s, continue to deny women their constitutional right to gender equality and fuel religious intolerance and violence against them.
Their access to justice and security will remain elusive so long as legal and administrative barriers to political and economic empowerment remain, particularly the Hudood Ordinances (1979), FATA’s Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) (1901) and the Nizam-e-Adl (2009) in KPK’s Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA).
The report says that the government has a constitutional obligation and international commitments, including under the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to combat gender inequality and remove such barriers to women’s empowerment.
 Repealing discriminatory legislation and enforcing laws that protect women, including by ensuring that they have access to a gender-responsive police and courts, are essential to ending the impunity that promotes violence against women.
The extent to which rights violations go unpunished is particularly alarming in FATA and KPK, where women are subjected to state-sanctioned discrimination, militant violence, religious extremism and sexual violence.
Militants target women’s rights activists, political leaders and development workers without consequences. The prevalence of informal justice mechanisms in many parts of Pakistan, particularly in Pakhtunkhwa and FATA, are also highly discriminatory toward women; and the government’s indiscriminate military operations, which have displaced millions, have further aggravated the challenges they face in the conflict zones.
In KP and FATA, and indeed countrywide, women’s enhanced meaningful presence in decision-making, including political participation as voters and in public office, will be central to sustainable reform.
RECOMMENDATIONS: The report suggested that National Assembly should approve the Anti-Rape Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act, the Anti-Honour Killings Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Act and the Torture, Custodial Death and Custodial Rape (Prevention and Punishment) Act, passed by the Senate in March 2015.
It also suggested that the national legislature should establish a quota of general (directly-elected) National Assembly seats, in addition to the existing reserved (unelected) seats, for women legislators, and the parliament’s rules of procedures should be amended to ensure a certain number of parliamentary committees are headed by women.
The federal and provincial governments should prioritize the development of a gender-responsive security apparatus, including by increasing the numbers of policewomen, particularly in senior positions; building police capacity to investigate crimes against women; and strengthening the National Police Bureau (NPB) and its gender crimes cell’s liaison with provincial authorities. It called for repeal of Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) in FATA and the Nizam-e-Adl in PATA and extends the jurisdiction of superior courts to FATA so that citizens there can seek protection of the fundamental rights the constitution guarantees them.