Licensed cruelty

EDITORIAL: Senator Sherry Rehman has performed an important public service by exposing the grim reality hidden behind the respectable facade of many rehabilitation and psychiatric care centres operating in the country. Her remarks at the recent launch of the report “Caged in Care: Investigating Human Rights Abuses in Rehabilitation Centres”, hosted by the National Commission for Human Rights, constitute a serious indictment of a system that has allowed vulnerable citizens to be deprived of liberty, dignity, and basic human rights under the misleading label of “care”. If even a fraction of the allegations contained in the report are true, the issue represents not merely administrative negligence but a profound moral and legal failure of the state.

The most disturbing aspect of the matter is the apparent normalisation of abuse, detention, and coercion in institutions meant to provide healing and support. Rehabilitation centres are supposed to restore health and reintegrate individuals into society, not function as private prisons where patients are unlawfully confined, forcibly medicated, or abused for purposes ranging from property disputes to social control. Senator Rehman’s comparison with Victorian-era confinement practices is therefore apt.

Throughout history, societies have frequently used medical authority to silence ‘inconvenient’ individuals, particularly women, persons suffering from mental illness, and those lacking social or economic power. The danger becomes even greater when weak regulation enables families, rehab centre owners, and medical personnel to misuse institutional authority without fear of accountability.

Equally alarming is Senator Rehman’s observation that Pakistan has ratified international human rights conventions and enacted women’s protection and empowerment laws, yet implementation remains gravely inadequate. This widening gap between legislation and enforcement has become one of the country’s most persistent governance failures.

Registration and licensing systems that should protect citizens appear, in some cases, to have become shields behind which abuse flourishes unchecked. Regulatory bodies often conduct little more than superficial inspections, while complaints by victims and their families rarely result in meaningful investigations or prosecutions.

The issue, therefore, extends far beyond the rehabilitation sector itself. It reflects a broader culture of impunity in which institutions entrusted with public welfare operate without effective oversight. Where accountability is weak, abuse inevitably follows. The state cannot permit medical professionals or private operators to exercise unchecked authority over individuals who are already vulnerable because of illness, addiction, or social dependence.

Senator Rehman is right to demand immediate intervention by the ministries of health and law, licensing authorities, and regulatory agencies. Independent monitoring systems, transparent inspections, mandatory reporting mechanisms, and strict criminal penalties for unlawful detention and abuse are urgently needed.

Most importantly, patients must be recognised not as passive subjects of “care” but as citizens possessing inviolable rights and dignity. A civilised society is judged not by how it treats the powerful, but by how it protects its most vulnerable citizens.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026