WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY RESOURCES: PAKISTAN

Civil Society and NGO Reports, Papers and Statements

South Asia: Human Rights Index 2008
Asian Centre for Human Rights, August 2008
This report indexes the human rights records of the member States of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) - the subregional inter-governmental organisation. Indexing human rights records of the governments is a controversial exercise as there are no foolproof or universally acceptable yardsticks to measure records. Given the scale of the task, this report is not exhaustive but rather aims to chronicle patterns, practices and the implications for the concerned countries. While this report is an index, it also demonstrates that all South Asian countries have serious human rights problems. A regional analysis also shows a high level of commonality in human rights patterns. Discrimination is endemic, institutionalised and in many cases legalised. Human rights violations are integral to counterinsurgency operations conducted by the military in the sub-region. Human rights are routinely violated in police detention including the routine use of torture. National security laws tend to be poorly framed, routinely abused and used as blanket cover to silence legitimate dissent rather than tackle security. These are not the assertions of one organisation but repeatedly confirmed by national and regional and international NGOs and the various UN bodies established to monitor human rights.

Countries in the report: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka

To read the full report, please click HERE

Gender Mainstreaming Project: the Gender Issue
Government of Pakistan Planning and Development Division, 2007
This report includes the government of Pakistan’s approach to reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets for achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment through gender mainstreaming.

Gender discrimination, unequal access to resources and opportunities, lack of basic services, women’s under-representation in politics and business and the imbalance of power relationships between men and women hamper the progress of the society as a whole. Keeping the talents, energies and aspirations at bay from half the society impairs human development.

For the full report, please click HERE

Trafficking of Women and Children in South Asia and Within Pakistan
Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid, June 2002
Three reports have been published on the trafficking of women and children in Pakistan. They elaborate on the methods by which Bangladeshi and Burmese women and children are trafficked into Pakistan and describe how children used as camel jockeys are smuggled out of Pakistan. The reports were published in 1991, 1993 and 1995-96. Copies of these can be obtained from the LHRLA office. Send an email or write to:

Lawyers for Human Rights & Legal Aid
D-1, 1st Floor, Court View Apartment, opposite Sindh Assembly Building
Court Road
Karachi-74200, Pakistan

Phone: 92-21-5685824-5219902
Fax: 92-21-5685938

UN Documents

Government Statements and Reports

Pakistan: Annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor – U.S. Department of State
2003 Report
2002 Report
2001 Report
2000 Report
1999 Report

Books, Journals and Articles

Fallen Angels: The Sex Workers of South Asia
John Frederick and Thomas L. Kelly. New Delhi: Lustre Press and Roli Books, 2000; 168p.
South east Asia's booming sex industry has been described by numerous authors and journalists, but the outside world has paid scant attention to the same problem in South Asia, where hundreds of thousands of young women and men are trapped in squalid brothels in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Part of the reason could be that it is mainly an internal problem, and, as the authors of this remarkable book point out, the South Asian sex industry involves more children than perhaps anywhere else in the world.

To purchase the book, click here to contact the Nepalese Ray of Hope Foundation. The foundation helps rehabilitate sex workers and works with young villagers in Nepal to teach them about the dangers of entering the sex industry.