Pakistani NGO’s Report: During 2009, Some 284 Women were Killed in the Name of 'Honor' in Sindh, 245 in Punjab, 14 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 59 in Baluchistan

According to the statistics from the report cited in the leading daily The News, the province of Punjab tops the list in incidents of violence against women with 5,722 cases out of the total 8,548 cases for Pakistan.[3]

Comparatively, the province of Sindh reported the second highest instance of violence against women with 1,762 cases, while Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly the North West Frontier Province) and Baluchistan experienced 655 and 237 cases of violence against women respectively.

It should be noted that these statistics, collected largely on the basis of newspaper reports, do not give a complete picture of the various forms of violence experienced by Pakistani women.

According to The News report: "Besides murders and honor killings, women in Pakistan continue to face many other types of physical violence in their everyday lives. Although the most common one is domestic violence, yet it goes unreported most of the times."[4]

Most of The Honor Killings Took Place in Sindh and Punjab With 284 and 245 Cases Respectively

According to the report, during 2009, some 245 women were killed in the name of the "honor" in Punjab, 14 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 59 in Baluchistan and 284 in Sindh.

There were 608 registered cases of domestic violence reported across the country, which is a 116 percent increase from last year.

The report added: "There has also been an extremely worrisome increase in trends of abduction and kidnapping, sexual harassment, sexual assaults, rape and gang rape and acid throwing across Pakistan during 2009. Abductions were up by 11.38 percent with 1,987 reported cases. This also reflects that rape and gang rape cases might also be severely under reported to avoid social stigma attached with such incidents in Pakistan."[5]

At a meeting to release the report, Pakistani lawmaker and former minister Sherry Rehman, who introduced legislation in this regard, termed the statistics "statistics of shame" and observed: "I have presented the draft for the bill VAW [violence against women] in the National Assembly twice, but it was rejected by the then Law Minister of the Musharraf era, who said that violence against women is not prohibited in Islam."[6]

Lahore and Faisalabad Reported Highest Number of Cases of Violence Against Women, 910 and 742 Respectively

According to another report in the Dawn newspaper, of the total of 8,548 incidents 172 cases of violence against women were reported in the federal capital of Islamabad. However, it is Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, which had the highest incidents of violence with 910 cases, followed by Faisalabad with 742 cases.[7]

According to the Dawn report, the other Pakistani towns that witnessed significant a number of such cases were Sargodha 473, Rawalpindi 352, Peshawar 310, Gujranwala 290, Sheikhupura 259, Sukkur 243, Multan 240, Kasur 255, Vehari 171 and Toba Tek Singh 159.

Of the Pakistan-wide figures, 1,987 incidents were abduction cases, 1,384 murder, 928 rape and gang-rape, 683 suicide, 604 "honor" killing, 274 sexual assault, 50 stove burning, and 27 acid throwing cases were reported in 2009.[8]

Also, 1,977 cases of violence of a miscellaneous nature (custodial violence, torture, trafficking, child marriages, incest, threat to violence, sexual harassment, attempted murder, suicide and rape) were reported in the four provinces and Islamabad, the report added.