essay on human rights in pakistan

Essay On Human Rights In Pakistan (200 & 500 Words)

Essay on human rights in pakistan (200 words).

Human rights are fundamental rights inherent to everyone, regardless of race, gender, religion, or nationality. These rights include the right to life, liberty, and security of a person, freedom of expression, and the right to a fair trial. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, human rights is far from satisfactory.

One of the most pressing issues in Pakistan is the lack of protection for the rights of women and girls. Women are often subjected to discrimination, violence, and harassment. Child labor is also a prevalent problem in the country, with millions of children forced to work in dangerous and exploitative conditions.

Furthermore, the government’s use of draconian laws to suppress freedom of speech and expression is also a significant concern. Journalists and human rights defenders are often targeted and subjected to harassment and intimidation.

However, there have been some positive developments in recent years, with the government addressing these issues. For instance, the National Commission on the Rights of the Child was established in 2017 to protect children’s rights. The government has also taken measures to curb child labor and provide education to children.

In conclusion, while there is still a long way to go, the human rights situation in Pakistan is slowly improving. The government must ensure that all individuals, regardless of their background, are treated with dignity and respect and are afforded their fundamental human rights.

Essay On Human Rights In Pakistan (500 words)

Human rights are fundamental rights to which every human being is entitled regardless of race, gender, religion, or any other status. The law protects these rights and is essential for a dignified and just society. In Pakistan, human rights have been a topic of concern for many years, and while some progress has been made, much work remains to be done.

Pakistan is a country that has struggled with human rights violations in various forms. Some of the most notable violations include discrimination against women, child labor, religious persecution, and extrajudicial killings. The government and civil society organizations have taken steps to address these issues, but progress has been slow.

One of Pakistan’s most significant human rights issues is discrimination and violence against women. Even though women make up half of Pakistan’s population, they face numerous challenges, including limited access to education, employment, and healthcare. They are also subjected to violence, including domestic violence and honor killings. The government has taken steps to address these issues, such as passing laws that criminalize violence against women and setting up shelters for survivors of violence. However, implementation remains a challenge, and cultural attitudes toward women must also be addressed.

Child labor is another human rights issue in Pakistan. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), Pakistan has an estimated 12.5 million child laborers. These children are often forced to work in hazardous conditions, such as brick kilns or mines, and are denied access to education. The government has taken steps to address child labor, such as passing laws prohibiting child labor and setting up a hotline to report violations. However, enforcement of these laws remains weak, and child labor continues to be prevalent in many parts of the country.

Religious persecution is also a concern in Pakistan, particularly for religious minorities such as Christians, Hindus, and Ahmadis. These minorities face discrimination in various forms, including limited access to education and employment, and are often the targets of violence. The government has taken steps to address this issue, such as passing laws that criminalize hate speech and violence against religious minorities. However, enforcement remains a challenge, and sectarian violence remains a problem in many parts of the country.

Extrajudicial killings are another human rights issue in Pakistan. These are killings by police or security forces without a trial or legal process. These killings are often carried out in the name of counter-terrorism or law and order. While the government has taken steps to address this issue, such as setting up commissions to investigate these killings, impunity remains a concern. Victims’ families often struggle to get justice, and many cases go unresolved.

In conclusion, human rights remain a significant challenge in Pakistan. The government and civil society organizations have taken steps to address these issues, but progress has been slow. Discrimination and violence against women, child labor, religious persecution, and extrajudicial killings continue to be prevalent in many parts of the country. More needs to be done to address these issues, including strengthening the enforcement of existing laws, changing cultural attitudes, and promoting education and awareness about human rights. Only then can Pakistan become a country that truly respects and protects the human rights of all its citizens.

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Sana Mursleen is a student studying English Literature at Lahore Garrison University (LGU). With her love for writing and humor, she writes essays for Top Study World. Sana is an avid reader and has a passion for history, politics, and social issues.

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November 14th, 2022

The struggles, victories and debates on human rights in pakistan.

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Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Seventy-five isn’t too old in country years. It is a milestone nonetheless, one that compels a stock-taking of sorts. For human rights and civil liberties in Pakistan, the last 75 years have been a constant struggle.

Time as a milestone is an interesting analogy. Some other analogies immediately come to mind. I recently met Baba Jan , a political activist from Gilgit-Baltistan , who had to spend 10 years in prison on charges of being anti-State and inciting people against the government; he was originally sentenced to 71 years (yes, you read that right). Exactly three years ago, Idris Khattak , a political and human rights activist was abducted, charged with espionage eight months later under the Official Secrets Act and sentenced to 14 years of rigorous imprisonment by a military court. A few months on and Junaid Hafeez , a university lecturer, will have completed 10 years behind bars, mostly in solitary confinement, on charges of blasphemy. He is now sentenced to death, awaiting his appeal to be heard in the High Court.

Back to Pakistan at 75, and its struggle for rights going back to pre-1947 when India and Pakistan were one country.

Our guru on civil rights and liberties, I. A. Rehman , reminded us how the Nehru Committee , headed by Motilal Nehru , constituted in 1928 to draft a Constitution for united India by the Indians, wrote a chapter on fundamental rights in its report, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, movement and nationality. For students of the history in Pakistan, the Nehru Report was rejected by the Muslim League because it denied Muslims the 33 per cent share in the central legislature they were asking for. For these students, Jinnah’s Fourteen Points — presented as an answer to the Nehru Report as an alternative political strategy for Muslims — are of far greater value.

That human rights were very much a part of the independence struggle is what our guru was actually trying to tell us.

Once the decision on the partition of the Indian subcontinent was taken, the dynamics and priorities changed for the Muslim leadership. One of the first things done by the Constituent Assembly in Pakistan was to set up two committees, one to decide the basic principles of the Constitution, the other for fundamental rights of citizens and matters related to minorities. Jinnah chaired the second committee himself. This was 12 August 1947, days before Jinnah was sworn in as Governor-General. A lot of ground was covered by the Rights Committee in Jinnah’s lifetime and, even though the draft Constitution was not completed till 1956, the Constituent Assembly had accepted the chapter on fundamental rights by 1950.

Even before this was Jinnah’s famous 11 August speech — ‘You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques…’ — where he laid the foundations of equal citizenship in a secular polity that he envisaged for the new country. Later, Pakistan under its foreign minister Sir Zafarullah Khan became one of the 48 countries that voted in favour of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the United Nations in 1948.

But wait. A little bit more of history is in order — to understand why it has been a constant struggle for rights in this country.

Equal citizenship and secular polity remained contested subjects from Day One. Months after Jinnah’s death, in March 1949, the Constituent Assembly passed a motion titled ‘Aims and Objectives of the Constitution’, famously known as the ‘ Objectives Resolution ’, which was vehemently opposed by all minority members who voted against it. They did not approve of the amalgamation of religion and politics written into the Objectives Resolution — individuals have religions, states don’t, they warned — and feared it will turn Pakistan into a theocracy.

Uttering these prophetic words, the minority members who could leave, left the country over time. The promise of equal citizenship dwindled, a Constitution was formalised in 1956 and abrogated in 1958 when the first Martial Law was declared , a centralised state was preferred over a decentralised one, and another Constitution brought in, in 1962.

The 1962 Constitution was a rarity in that it ignored the concept of justiciable fundamental rights. The then president General Ayub Khan paid no heed to the recommendation of its own, selected Constitution Commission — to retain the fundamental rights as provided in the 1956 Constitution. Instead, he turned them into Principles of law-making alone. In an overly insecure and highly centralised state, eight political leaders (all from East Pakistan) made a public statement demanding these rights to be restored in the 1962 Constitution and be made justiciable instead of as Principles of law-making.

The rights were eventually restored to the Constitution in early1964, with three exceptions: these will not be applicable on the military/defence forces and those maintaining law and order (just as it was in the 1956 Constitution); all laws passed after the imposition of Martial Law would not be declared void if they are in conflict with fundamental rights; and that these rights will not apply to the tribal areas.

The burden of a centralised state — from One-Unit politics to military action in East Pakistan to curb Bengali nationalism — eventually led to the dismemberment of Pakistan in 1971, 24 years after independence. The ethno-linguistic nationalities in smaller provinces in what remains of Pakistan reel under the same burden, despite the passage of the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment which guarantees provincial autonomy.

The doings of military rules have haunted the country but the struggle for rights is on. It was during Ayub Khan’s military dictatorship when, through an Ordinance, a new section was introduced (Sec. 2(1) (d)) to the Army Act 1952 , which brought civilians within the scope of the Army Act for offences committed in relation to defence and security of Pakistan under the Official Secrets Act 1923. It is under this section that Idris Khattak was framed in 2019.

Today, everyone seems to rely on the chapter on fundamental rights in the 1973 Constitution as the ultimate handbook. Some of these rights are subject to ‘reasonable restrictions’ like ‘prejudicial to the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan’, ‘against public interest’, ‘prejudicial to sovereignty or integrity of Pakistan’, ‘glory of Islam’, ‘friendly relations with foreign states’, ‘public order, decency or morality’. The only absolute right in this chapter is about dignity of a person — one that the citizens are justified in finding as ‘absolutely’ ironic.

An oft-quoted phrase since its inception is how in Pakistan the rights given by one hand are then taken away by the other, referring to some provisions of the Constitution, laws and procedures that are used by state authorities to curb people’s rights. There is reference to colonial laws like the sedition law, laws against freedom of assembly, blasphemy laws, hate speech laws, Frontier Crimes Regulation (1901), etc. which were supplemented with post-colonial laws like the Prevention of Anti-National Activities Act , the Actions in Aid of Civil Power Regulations 2011, Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act , 2016, etc. Of the post-colonial laws, one which has been the broadest in scope in terms of its impact on fundamental rights is the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997.

The context of this brief primer on Pakistan’s constitutional history and laws is important if we want to understand what defines the struggle for rights in this country. In my view, three forces, or contradictions if you like — the military in ascendancy over civilian forces, majoritarian religion prevailing over a secular state, and a centralised state gaining power over federation — define the polity and state of rights.

Often, the ascendant forces have acted in tandem. For instance, the Anti-Terrorism courts have not sufficed for incidents of terrorism and military courts with their propensity for summary justice have been offered as a solution, with Constitutional amendments (21 st Amendment, 2015 and 23 rd Amendment, 2017) effected to put them in place (even if for four years). There are times when state authorities have not let the laws prevent them from acting against citizens whom they perceive as acting against ‘national interest’ or when they feel the laws are a hindrance, a liability, that take too long a time to bear any result. Enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and torture by state authorities are handy tools that have been used with impunity. Sometimes, when the noise against the forcibly disappeared becomes too loud, they are brought into the fold of law bearing charges of sedition, espionage and even blasphemy (the last charge was slapped in the case of five bloggers who ‘disappeared’ from Punjab in early 2017).

A state wearing religion on its sleeve has remained unkind to minorities, beginning with the passing of the Objectives Resolution mentioned earlier. The abuse of rights ranges from violence against religious minorities to minority sects to women to children to torture to abuses in the name of counter-terrorism. To list them all is not the intention here because any list will always leave some out.

Alongside the constitutional and legal battle for fundamental rights, which began early on, were women’s, students’ and labour movements since the 1950s and 1960s, albeit in silos. Add to these the fight for civil and political rights spearheaded by journalists and lawyers. Women protested under the Women’s Action Forum (WAF) against the discriminatory laws during Zia ul Haq ’s draconian military rule.

However, when Martial Law was lifted in 1985, it opened up the possibility of a wider movement on human rights which consolidated all the individual struggles. That is when lawyers Asma Jahangir , Hina Jilani and a few like-minded people from amongst lawyers, retired judges, journalists and academics gathered to lay the foundation of a Human Rights Commission. They travelled across the length and breadth of the country to invite people to become members of this civil society-led Commission. In 1986, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) started its work, which was ambitious to begin with: it aimed to keep a record of all human rights violations, ranging from civil and political to economic, social and cultural, conduct fact-finding missions, produce authentic reports, do advocacy and lobbying, synchronise the local human rights debate with the one happening on the international scene, remind the Pakistani government of its international obligations, push for a National Commission on human rights, and so on.

Thanks to HRCP and its thousands of volunteers across Pakistan, there is now a human rights edifice in place, including but not limited to a range of civil society organisations doing stellar work, a Ministry of Human Rights in the central government as well as in the provinces, parliamentary committees on human rights, a statutory National Commission on Human Rights, statutory commissions on women and children, and a commission of sorts on minorities.

Today, human rights get spoken about. Yet, not only is the country still far from Jinnah’s vision of equal citizenship in a secular state, one isn’t sure if it is even geared in that direction. Just by way of example, a unique though imperfect law for the protection of transgender persons was passed in 2018, with corresponding provincial legislations being in the process of being presented as bills when, in recent months, obscurantist forces unleashed their hate campaign against the law, making the community more vulnerable than before. On the flip side, there is more public debate on the issue.

Seventy-five years, and the struggle for rights is still on.

The views expressed here are those of the author and not those of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science.  

Banner image © Markus Spiske, ‘Every Human has Rights’, 2021, Unsplash .

The ‘Pakistan @ 75’ logo is copyrighted  by the LSE South Asia Centre, and may not be used by anyone for any purpose. It shows the national flower of Pakistan, Jasmine ( Jasminum officinale ), framed in a filigree design adapted from Islamic architecture. The logo has been designed by Oroon Das.

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About the author

Farah Zia is a journalist, former Editor of ‘The News on Sunday’, human rights campaigner and currently Director, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. 

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The National Commission for Human Rights was formed through the National Commission for Human Rights Act, 2012

The Commission was created for the promotion and protection of human rights according to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 and international human rights instruments

What are Human Rights?

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, regardless of race, sex, nationality, ethnicity, language, religion, or any other status. Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone is entitled to these rights, without discrimination.

Message from the Chairperson

NCHR’s vision is to see a progressive Pakistan where human rights of all faiths, races and ethnicities are respected and celebrated. Through our dedicated team across Pakistan, NCHR is committed to fulfilling its mandate of promoting the human rights of all citizens.

Message of the Chairperson

As the second team of the National Commission for Human rights has finally been appointed, the NCHR is now functional once again and committed to work towards human rights protection and realisation throughout the country. NCHR’s vision is to see a progressive Pakistan where human rights off all faiths, races and ethnicities are respected and celebrated. Through our dedicated team across Pakistan, the Commission is committed to fulfilling its mandate of promoting human rights of all citizens.

The Commission’s role and functions are unique: an autonomous and impartial body formed through an Act of Parliament, the NCHR’s mandate is in line with Paris Principles, the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973 and has the capacity to advise the Government on Pakistan’s commitment to fulling its international human rights obligations under the seven core international human rights instruments Pakistan is a signatory to and has ratified: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

NCHR’s distinguishing position further allows it to act as a liaison between the Government and civil society organizations. This distinct feature is achieved through NCHR’s pivotal role of working with civil society organizations and extensive mandate which allows for it to monitor, observe, directly investigate, raise awareness, inquire into complaints and make recommendations pertaining to human rights issues across Pakistan. The National Commission for Human Rights Act, 2012 specifically allows the Commission multiple powers such as the authority to inquire and investigate into complaints of human rights, submit an application to court to become a party of a case involving human rights, perform jail visits, make recommendations for the amendment or adoption of new laws and make recommendations for the implementation of international human rights instruments.

As the rest of today’s world, there are multifaceted human rights issues in Pakistan which arise on a day to day basis. NCHR’s role will be central to resolving such issues over the duration of its term through zeal, dedication and integrity.

The primary functions and powers of the NCHR

Judicial & Investigative Function

Conduct investigations into allegations of human rights abuses, either on petitions filed by individuals or institutions, or through suo-moto action.

Review existing and proposed legislation in relation to human rights principles and act as a court when required.

Knowledge Production

Develop Reports, Data & research and advise on policy matters pertaining to the situation of human rights in Pakistan.

Awareness & Advocacy

Contribute to national human rights awareness-raising and advocacy initiatives in the country.

Legal Monitoring & Policymaking

Act as a human rights watchdog to ensure provision of constitutional and legal safeguards for human rights in laws and policies.

Activities and Events

Registering an fir (fir darj karnay ka tareeka) – aagahi series, nikkahnama – aagahi series, sexual harassment (jinsi hirasa) – aagahi series, rape (zina bil jabr) – aagahi series.