Pakistan’s women’s rights movement has seen monumental growth and progress in recent years, as women continuously break boundaries and claim their rightful place at every table in society. While significant challenges remain, the unstoppable momentum towards gender equality is reshaping norms and transforming the future for Pakistani women.
Historical Struggle
The struggle for women’s rights in Pakistan originated even before the country’s independence in 1947. Activists like Fatima Jinnah, Rana Liaqat Ali Khan and Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan were at the forefront, championing issues like female education and enfranchisement.
After independence, Pakistan’s first constitution in 1956 gave women equal voting rights. But the ensuing decades saw partial backtracking of many rights, as discriminatory legislation like the Hudood Ordinances curtailed women’s freedoms. By the 1980s, the movement regained steam as lawyers and activists like Asma Jahangir and Hina Jilani founded the first all-women law firm and took up cases to regain lost rights.
The early 2000s saw the tide start to shift more substantially in favor of women’s rights. The mdrtum for change was built through advocacy from civil society, enactment of pro-women legislation, and increased educational attainment among women.
Recent Milestones
In recent years, Pakistani women have attained several hard-fought milestones demonstrating their emergence as an unignorable force of change:
More Political Representation: Women’s political participation has risen steadily, with women voters turning out at higher rates than men. Over 20% of parliamentarians in the National Assembly are now women.
New Laws: Legislation like the Women’s Property Rights Act have expanded women’s ownership and inheritance rights. Bills against domestic violence, workplace harassment and forced conversions are also advancing women’s legal protections.
Access to Technology: Growing smartphone and internet penetration among women is connected them to information, opportunities and solidarity networks.
Entrepreneurship: Pakistani women are pioneering startups and social enterprises in fields from e-commerce to digital media at record rates, driving innovation and economic growth.
Sports and Culture: Representation of women in sports, arts, fashion and culture is exploding. Trailblazers like boxer Syeda Sadia Ghulam, footballer Hajra Khan and Oscar winner Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy are changing perceptions.
Education: With girls’ school enrollment tripling in the last two decades, today over 50% of university students are women priming them for high-impact careers.
Challenging the Status Quo
Several factors have catalyzed the recent transformation in women’s status:
Women Uniting: Networks like the Women’s Action Forum and Aurat March have unified women across classes and backgrounds to collectively advocate their rights. Via art, music and protest, their voices are resonating through the mainstream.
Youth Attitudes Changing: 60% of Pakistan’s population is below age 30. This generation is rejecting traditional biases, driving positive shifts in attitudes about women through their social and work interactions.
Economic Pressures: With rising costs of living, families are realizing dual-incomes are needed, boosting women joining the workforce.
Global Connectedness: Exposure to worldwide women’s movements through internet penetration has connected Pakistani women to global feminism and inspiration.
Weakening of Religious Parties: Mainstream political parties have gained strength while religious parties have lost influence. Their declining power reduces pressure against progressive gender agendas.
Men as Allies: An emerging cohort of socially conscious men is speaking out in solidarity with women’s rights activism, recognizing it as beneficial for society as a whole.
The Road Ahead
While the rising tide for women’s equality is undeniable, deep challenges persist in transforming Pakistan into an egalitarian society:
Cultural Barriers: Entrenched patriarchal attitudes and adherence to traditional gender roles by some segments of society continue to impede progress in rural areas especially.
Workplace Discrimination: Lack of accommodations, harassment issues and pay disparities are still obstacles for women pursuing careers.
Violence Against Women: From rape to honor killings, deeply disturbing rates of gender-based violence reflect the value still denied to women’s lives.
Lack of Childcare Support: The shortage of public childcare facilities and parental leave policies compounds the struggle for working mothers to fulfill responsibilities.
Girls’ Education: Despite improvements, 23 million girls nationally remain out of school, constrained by cultural hindrances, lack of access or security issues.
Gender Data Gaps: Pakistan still lacks robust gender-disaggregated data across sectors like health, work and crime to understand where women lag.
Low Representation in Leadership: Women are still excluded from high-level decision making roles in law enforcement, justice, corporations and government.
Regressive Elements: Extreme religious groups actively denounce feminism and women’s empowerment as ‘un-Islamic’, impeding more radical progress.
Legal Discrimination: Many discriminatory laws remain unrepealed, including inadequate penalties for perpetrators of violence against women.
Marching Ahead
To achieve true equality, sustained collaborative action between policymakers, civil society and private sector is needed. Key priorities include:
- Expanding educational access, especially secondary and tertiary schooling for girls.
- Strict enforcement of laws protecting women’s rights.
- Vigorously prosecuting perpetrators of violence against women.
- Improving female workforce participation through subsidized childcare, equal pay and harassment policies.
- Expanding healthcare access including reproductive health services.
- Increasing women’s political representation with minimum quotas at national and provincial levels.
- Targeted development programs to empower rural and low-income women.
- Gender sensitization training across police, judiciary and government institutions.
- Robust gender-disaggregated data collection to identify priority reform areas.
- Partnerships with men as stakeholders in gender equality initiatives.
- Amplifying positive portrayals of empowered Pakistani women in media.
- Continuous engagement between policymakers and women’s rights activists.
Despite obstacles, women’s rights continue moving ahead as an unstoppable force. No longer silent, Pakistani women are boldly demanding their rightful place, and this new generation will not be denied. The march towards full equality persists, and its momentum is only accelerating.
