Rights Group Says Victim-Blaming Culture Is Compounding Pakistan's Gender Violence Crisis

Pakistani rights group Voice of Pakistan Minority (VOPM) says a deep-rooted culture of victim-blaming is compounding an already severe gender-based violence crisis, pointing to newly compiled figures showing 3,172 reported cases nationally in the first six months of 2026.

The scale of the numbers

The figures, drawn from Sahil's Six Months Cruel Numbers Report and cited by VOPM in its September 25 statement, break down as 644 murders, 514 cases of torture, 462 abductions, 363 suicides, 280 rapes, 175 injuries, 132 honour killings and 21 other offences including harassment, gang rape and cases involving pornography. Eighteen of the recorded cases involved transgender victims. Punjab accounted for roughly 74% of all reported cases and Sindh around 17%, with more than half occurring inside the victim's own home. Victims aged 21 to 30 made up the largest single group, at 334 cases, followed by 306 victims aged 11 to 20 and 120 aged 31 to 40.

Rights researchers who compile this kind of data routinely caution that the real total is higher still, since fear, shame, family pressure and distrust of police keep an unknown share of cases from ever being reported.

What VOPM is arguing

Beyond the numbers, VOPM's statement focused on how Pakistani society responds once a case does become public. "In Pakistan, a woman can be raped and still be asked what she did to cause it," the group said. "She can be harassed over her clothes, location, or character. She can be murdered in the name of honour. Yet people still debate her choices instead of condemning the crime." The statement went on to reject the underlying logic point by point: "A woman's clothes do not cause rape. Travelling at night does not justify assault. Trust does not equal consent. Rejecting a man does not give him the right to attack or kill."

The group singled out honour killings specifically, describing them as crimes rooted in a belief that men are entitled to control women's choices rather than in any genuine notion of family honour — a framing that shifts responsibility for the killing away from the perpetrator and onto the victim's conduct.

Why the framing matters

VOPM's core argument is that victim-blaming isn't just a social attitude sitting alongside the violence — it functions as a mechanism that discourages reporting, undermines prosecutions, and gives communities cover to treat perpetrators as less culpable than the women they harmed. That connects directly to the underreporting problem in the case data itself: when survivors expect scrutiny of their own conduct rather than support, many will choose not to report at all, meaning the reported total likely understates the true scale of violence.

The pattern also intersects with other rights issues this site has tracked, including systemic barriers to timely justice in Pakistan's court system, where prolonged case backlogs can leave survivors waiting years for resolution even when they do come forward, and broader accountability gaps documented in Pakistan's response to UN findings on enforced disappearances.

What comes next

VOPM has not announced specific policy demands beyond the statement itself, but the timing lands alongside broader UN-level scrutiny of Pakistan's rights record this month, including submissions on minority and gender protections at the ongoing session of the UN Human Rights Council. Whether that scrutiny translates into concrete legislative or enforcement changes domestically — such as expanded protection mechanisms or faster prosecution pathways for gender-based violence cases — remains an open question that will play out over the coming months rather than this news cycle.

Build Better Pakistan's Rights Desk covers gender-based violence, minority rights and access to justice as part of our ongoing coverage.