Violence against women: Punjab leads with 5112 cases in 2024

ISLAMABAD: A civil society organization has revealed in a report released on Wednesday that a total of 5,112 incidents of violence against women were reported across Pakistan in 2024.

NGO Sahil compiled the report based on data collected from 81 different newspapers from all four provinces, including Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB).

The United Nations defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or mental harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.”

According to the Sahil report, 73 percent of the total cases were reported from Punjab, 15 percent from Sindh, eight percent from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and two percent from ICT, Balochistan, AJK and GB.

The NGO noted that in 33 percent of the total cases, the abusers were acquaintances, 14 percent were husbands, 10 percent were strangers, while 22 percent were unknown/unknown.

The report also stated that the incidents of violence against women reported from across the country included various forms of violence, such as murder, suicide, kidnapping, rape, honor killings and torture.

In 2024 There were 1273 cases of murder, 799 of kidnapping, 579 of torture, 533 of rape and 380 of suicide.

The data shows that five percent of the total reported cases were victims under the age of 18, while the remaining 95 percent were adults.

The data also shows that the age group of 21-30 years is the most vulnerable to persistent abuse.

A total of 459 cases were reported in the age group of 21-30 years, 444 cases in the age group of 11-20 years, 167 cases in the age group of 31-40 years, and 3261 cases where the age of the victims was not mentioned.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “nearly 1 in 3 (30 percent) women worldwide have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.”