In Sheikhupura, news of a five-month pregnant woman reportedly doused in fuel and set on fire by her mother-in-law over dowry demands sent shockwaves far beyond Ferozewala. Burns covering nearly 70% of her body proved fatal.
Punjab’s Women Protection Authority chief Hina Butt has promised swift justice, calling it among the worst forms of brutality and insisting the culprits deserve no leniency. Yet, few women hear reassurance in such words anymore. As PPP Senator Sherry Rehman warned after the killing, impunity remains the rule rather than the exception.
Official statistics paint a staggering picture of gender violence. Last year, Pakistan recorded over 2,000 domestic-abuse cases and 5,000 rapes, but convictions in these crimes remained below 2%. That a single week in July saw at least seven women killed or sexually assaulted was nothing short of a grim reminder that violence against women is a pervasive and entrenched issue. In case after case, survivors were attacked by husbands, fathers or neighbours, confirming that the threat to women cuts across class, region and time of day.
Pakistan does not lack laws. Still, justice remains uncertain because the system meant to deliver it fails at predictable points. Investigations rely on outdated methods, forensic capacity is thin, and adjournments become a strategy rather than a procedural necessity.
Last year, a Senate human rights committee was forced to place on record that Sindh reported zero convictions from hundreds of rape and domestic violence cases reviewed in one session.
Meanwhile, women who seek help face inertia. Police often shrug off domestic violence as a private matter, and victims end up sent back into the same abusive living hell that drove them to seek protection in the first place.
The state cannot wash its hands of this. In a recent landmark judgment, the Supreme Court explicitly linked a wife’s death to a cycle of family abuse, stressing that preventing such tragedies is a shared responsibility of both the state and society. Even Islamabad’s own gender policy admits the state has a constitutional obligation to protect women’s rights. The hard truth is that these promises have not yet made women any safer.
A viral honour killing video from Balochistan last year pushed authorities into arrests and widened scrutiny of parallel justice practices. Tragically speaking, Pakistan’s politics is comfortable with punishment theatre and uneasy with prevention.
We will hear familiar phrases about “exemplary punishment” in Sheikhupura. Say them if you must, then insist on arrests that lead to convictions and a system that makes it harder to burn a woman than to protect her. *