Women, violence and conflict in Pakistan

Women’s security and their political, social and economic status in Pakistan are undermined by hardened social biases, discriminatory legislation and unresponsive state institutions; their lives and livelihoods are also threatened by violent extremism. On 10 December 2014, Malala Yousafzai received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo for her promotion of girls’ education. The young activist had made global headlines after surviving an attack in 2012 by Mullah Fazlullah’s Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP-Taliban Movement of Pakistan) in the Swat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province three years after the military claimed to have countered militant threats there. Belying similar claims of success in ongoing military operations in the North Waziristan and Khyber agencies of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), women and girls are still targeted by violent extremists. There is urgent need to counter gender inequity and violence against women in the Pashtun heartland but also throughout a country that ranks second to last in the World Economic Forum’s 2014 measurement of gender-based disparities in politics, economy, health, and education. This report presents an overview of both legal frameworks that have institutionalized discrimination and fuelled religious intolerance and violence against women and a dysfunctional criminal justice system that has failed to protect them and emboldened extremists.