The bleak picture of domestic violence

Though it is universally acknowledged that patience is a virtue, in Pakistan it is a virtue particularly associated with women. This is why in a country with the culture of acceptability for child marriages and honour killings, only 608 cases of violence by intimate partner or perpetrations in the household were reported nationwide in 2009. Patience has become synonymous with suffering in silence.

Violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into subordinate positions relative to men. Spousal violence is the most form of abuse of women which includes not only the widely understood physical and sexual abuse, but also emotional abuse and controlling behaviours. Understanding this, for the first time Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) of 2012-13 incorporated a domestic abuse module, which was further analysed by a recent research report by Social Policy and Development Center.

Some of its conclusions are absolutely unsurprising: higher women empowerment in the form of mobility, land ownership, employment and not accepting unequal gender roles reduce the likelihood of the husband slapping his wife around. What is surprising is that wife’s level of education was not found to be a significant deterrent against abuse. Furthermore, something as simple as watching TV daily was identified as a factor for increasing the risk of violence, along with women involvement in household decision making and the wife being more educationally accomplished than the husband.

PDHS’s survey highlights that one in three women (about 32 percent) have experienced physical violence since the age of 15. At 57 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has the highest percentage of women suffering from abuse, followed by Baluchistan at 43 percent. At 29 and 25 percent respectively, Punjab and Sindh’s numbers are much lower. And even these numbers are considered highly under-reported. An estimated 52 percent of women in Pakistan who suffer violence have never told anyone about what they have experienced.

As various times, the government has tried to pass legislation for women rights which have been blocked by the Council of Islamic Ideology. For example, in 2016 the Punjab Assembly passed a women protection bill which the CII and religion parties rejected as ‘unIslamic’ and lead to ‘break-up of society’. CII, who maintains that ‘light beating’ of the wife is permissible also allows nikah at any age.

The next PDHS survey is due to be completed this year. One can hope that it would report more favourable numbers this time around but it appears to be a forlorn hope.