PAKISTAN: HIGHEST NUMBER OF WOMEN ABUSE CASES RECORDED IN PUNJAB

In terms of complaints made by women this year about harassment, violence, kidnapping, and murder, Pakistan's Punjab leads all other provinces with 15,750.

In contrast, Sindh develops a reputation for growing incidences of women being killed for honour, with 111 such occurrences in 2021 and 88 in the current year to until already. However, according to the information available to this correspondent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was able to help 1,112 troubled women this year.

According to the official data made available to this correspondent, women in Punjab filed a total of 15,750 complaints during the first eight months (January to August) of the current year. The majority of complaints filed by Punjabi women during this time period were issues with job and health. In this regard, some 7,000 calls were made. While 5,914 complaints were made about domestic abuse, social media violence, and job harassment against women in Punjab during January to August of this year.

More than 380 women voiced complaints regarding killings, rape, kidnapping, and abductions. Additionally, there were 1424 complaints about property-related issues, including property inheritance. Around 1,050 Punjabi women complained about family-related concerns such as divorce, Khula, maintenance, or custody of minors. In Punjab, women can file complaints by calling the helpline at 1043. A total of 22,947 complaints from women about harassment, kidnapping, assault, domestic violence, family troubles, rape, killings, and employment were made to the Punjab helpline in 2020, and 24,296 complaints were made in 2021.

Between January and September 2022, Bolo Helpline in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa offered 1,112 services to women who had submitted complaints or needed advice regarding various issues. According to information provided to The News, 249 KPK women in total have benefited from legal assistance and counselling from Bolo Helpline in the first seven months of the current year. While 456 women received guidance and knowledge about their rights, 121 women received psychological counselling. Additionally, 286 women received housing or received police protection for their safety. Bolo Helpline had received 105 cases in total from KPK in 2018. In 2019, 89 cases of gender-based violence, including physical abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and social abuse, were addressed; in 2020, 165 cases were handled. Bolo Helpline received 70 complaints in 2021 from January to August involving the aforementioned problems experienced by women in KPK.

709 complaints totaling various difficulties were sent to the National Women Helpline Center (1099). Only seven of these complaints—interestingly, all seven of them—were about harassment, according to the data. They were all filed in Punjab. National Women Helpline (1099) received 1,890 complaints in total from women in Pakistan the previous year. 1,367 complaints from women came from just Punjab last year, according to the National Helpline Center (1099).

In contrast to this, 111 women were killed for honour in Sindh in 2021. According to the Women Protection Cell Sindh's annual report for 2021, 6,842 women were recorded as victims of violence, and 142 women were reported to have either been sexually assaulted or had an attempt made on their bodies. In 2021, there were a total of 1,288 incidences of violence against women reported in the Karachi area.