A former minister’s remark that women should not join the police force might have passed as another crude social-media provocation had it not echoed a much older and more dangerous assumption: that women may be governed by the state, policed by the state and blamed by the state, but must still ask permission before serving the state. Fawad Chaudhry’s comment, made in response to a post about Islamabad Chief Traffic Officer Kainat Azhar Khan, was not merely dismissive of women police officers. In essence, it reduced half the population to an inconvenience in one of the most public-facing arms of government.
This is hardly an isolated incident. We all remember how the Lahore CCPO Umar Sheikh reacted to the Lahore motorway gang rape, which shook the country in 2020; questioning why the survivor had taken that route late at night, shifting attention, in the first hours of a horrific crime, from the attackers to the woman’s choices. Former prime minister Imran Khan also triggered national and international criticism after linking sexual violence to women’s clothing and “temptation.” Back then, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and other civil society groups called those remarks “dangerously simplistic” because they reinforced the idea of women as knowing victims and men as helpless aggressors. Years earlier, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif’s “tractor trolley” remark against fellow politician Shireen Mazari inside parliament exposed the same impulse in another setting.
The thread running through these episodes is hard to miss. Women who enter public life are either told they are inviting danger, disturbing decorum, lacking femininity or occupying spaces better reserved for men.
That is why the debate over women in policing cannot be reduced to emotional outrage. It is a constitutional question, an access-to-justice question and a governance question. Pakistan’s Constitution guarantees equality before the law and prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. However, in practice, UN Pakistan has noted that women make up less than two per cent of Pakistan’s police force, a shortage that directly affects women’s willingness to report crimes and their access to justice. This is despite the state’s own stated 10 per cent quota for women in the police. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, women have reportedly remained less than one per cent of the force.
The same exclusion is visible across the wider national picture. Pakistan ranked last–148th out of 148 economies–in the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report 2025, with its overall parity score declining to 56.7 per cent.
The fake “merit” argument should also be retired. If a male officer is corrupt, brutal, incompetent or politically captured, no one declares all men unfit for policing. Yet women are asked to carry the burden of collective proof before they are allowed to belong.
A modern police force does not need fewer women. Rather, it needs more competent officers of every gender. In cases involving rape, domestic violence, harassment, trafficking, child abuse, and family disputes, having women officers can significantly influence whether a victim feels comfortable speaking out. *