Women in Pakistan belong to marginalized group and are more vulnerable to different forms of violence by family members and other people than that of males. In addition to different factors that make women more prone to violence and intimidation, one of the important determinants is their economic dependence on men. Because of this reason, most of the women continue to be oppressed because they think that they cannot live on their own.

Many cases of domestic violence and harassment at workplace or public places are reported by women but a few of them succeed in getting justice. “One in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her lifetime. This is an appalling human rights violation, yet it remains one of the invisible and under-recognized pandemics of our time", states Nicole Kidman, a UN ambassador. An egregious act of violence against women is the use of acid or kerosene on women to intimidate them but this one is discussed less frequently. 

In the year 2012, a documentary named “Saving Face” came out that involved acid-attack victims and the underlying conditions that give rise to such incidents. Dr Farhan Navid Yousaf who is associate professor at University of the Punjab, Lahore, along with Bandana Purkayastha wrote a paper, titled “Beyond saving faces: Survivors of acid attacks in Pakistan” to discuss the postattack experiences of the victims, breaches in the legislation relating to acid attacks, its relation with globalization, and socioeconomic challenges experienced by the victims.

The authors argue that acid attacks against women are committed with an intention to make them suffer physically, psychologically and socially, and this way the perpetrators try to vent their frustration by inflicting the opposite gender.

The authors opine that power inequalities make women more vulnerable, in addition, government’s inefficiency to “allocate sufficient resources for social protection of marginalized groups” serve to increase such cases with unabated vigor. As our society is becoming more violent with each passing day because of the prevailing insufficient economic resources and increase in poverty and unemployment level, men tend to spit out their anger by targeting women.

Moreover, acid attacks occur as a result of dowry issues, rejection of marriage proposals, family disputes and so on. In addition, women’s autonomy also hurts the inflated sense of ego in some men and they feel like the patriarchal structure is being threatened, so they try to silence women by opting to such means. 

The European Parliament adopted a resolution in April, addressing the blasphemy related issues and the marginalization of journalists and women in Pakistan. It discussed the breaching of human rights in Pakistan and maintained that it “is concerned that economic conditions often prevent minorities and marginalized groups from accessing justice”. I

t also enunciated that “the rights of women and children need to be protected at all times; calls on the government of Pakistan to improve access to services for victims of gender-based violence and to ensure appropriate prosecution of those responsible for sexual abuse of children”.

The availability of justice to the victims is seen rarely because of different reasons. Most of the women do not know about their rights; they do not resist violence because they think it is the inherent right of the men in their family to abuse them.  This is because of the family values and high illiteracy rate.

Secondly, even when the cases are reported, they are not taken forward efficiently because of lack of sensitization on the part of the police and the judiciary.

Thirdly, societal pressure is a significant hindrance in the victim’s way to access justice; society stigmatizes the victim and makes it difficult for the aggrieved woman to bring her perpetrator to justice. Furthermore, some women go for out-of-court settlement and do not continue to pursue their case because of pressure from the opposite side.

 To alleviate these issues, raising awareness among women to speak up against the myriad forms of injustices is the first step. Furthermore, laws are there for the assaults but it needs to be assured that the perpetrators’ timely punishment is made possible by the law agencies. Civil society and NGOs at local level should continue to vocalize the concerns of marginalized segments to make the state take action against these social evils.