4,732 rape cases reported in Lahore in 2020, says report

LAHORE:Punjab Commission on Status of Women (PCSW) launched 4th Punjab Gender Parity Report 2019 & 2020 at a local hotel here on Thursday.

PCSW has issued detailed report on demographics, governance, health, education, economic participation & opportunities and justice. PCSW has also given recommendations on them. The data was collected from thousands of public offices and there were 253 indicators. The report reflected that justice situation is most alarming especially in women cases. It says the highest number of rape cases, 4732 were reported in Lahore in 2020. Lahore again is the city that has recorded highest number of kidnappings and abductions, 2957 in number. Domestic violence shows an overall decrease by 3.5%, still it has been reported most in Lahore (345 cases).

Crimes against women have increased as there were 5% convictions and 95% acquittals in 2020 while the police emergency number 15 received 214,493 calls regarding violence against women in Punjab.

Honour killings recorded 20% increase in 2020. Most cases were reported in Faisalabad and Sargodha (19). There was 24% overall decrease in cases of acid attacks in 2020 while the highest number of cases (8) were reported from Faisalabad.

At the launch of the report, the Minister for Women Development Ashifa Riaz Fatiana congratulated the PCSW team for generating the report despite limited resources. The panelists were Yasmin Zaidi, Fauzia Yazdani, Advocate Sahar Bandial and AIG Police Asad Muzaffar while Aliya Ali Khan was the moderator.

Panelists, speaking on the occasion, said that the biggest gap is between the law and the implementation of law and pointed out that the Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act 2016 has been notified in only one district; that in 70 percent cases there is nomedico legal examination. The high court advocate pointed out that it took 550 days to complete a rape trial in Lodhran when the law said it should be completed within three months. Speakers underlined the need to change the attitude of individuals who man the criminal justice system. The AIG Police in the panel saw the problem lay in not getting out of the family web. Also, the concept of general witnesses is yet to develop, he said.

The panelists suggested that every department must give its disaggregated data, that govt should give easy loans to women for business and transport and promote women’s businesses. Public transport needs to be in large number. The report says that while 48 percent women are borrowers, only 32 percent of them are getting bank loans.

The Punjab Women’s Helpline 1043 (2018-20) received 738 complaints of violence and torture, 723 cases of harassment, 562 cases of property, 503 of criminal offence, 191 family issues, 79 cases of issues in employment and 40 of harmful traditional practices.

The helpline only refers the callers to other departments. Women need a helpline which, when they call, actually/physically comes to their help. There is a Legal Aid Authority which only four people approached in a year. State has to lead and be seen as leading. What is needed most is an action plan, a panelist said.

A quick look at presence of women in police says there are 4% women police officers in Punjab prisons while help desks for women have increased from 6% in 2018 to 24% in 2020. Statistics on women in prisons is until 2019. There are 734 women prisoners while 102 women are in prisons with children. There were 16 percent women advocates in 2020 while there are 17 percent women prosecutors. There were 16% women in the district judiciary as of April 2021 while 5% women are in Lahore High Court.

The absence of chairperson of Punjab Commission on the Status of Women since 2019 reflects in the report on ‘economic participation and opportunities’ where there is no evaluation of labour force participation rate and of employment in agriculture and non-agriculture sector, beyond 2018.

However, access to and ownership of physical resources show only 1.5% women own vehicles as compared to 98.5% men and over the years the number of women issued driving license has gone down from 5.2% in 2017 to 3.3% in 2020. When it comes to agricultural land ownership, 7.9 million women own agricultural land as compared to 17.2 million men.

The demographics show gender imbalance with 59.9 million men and 57.8 million women. Transgender people are 7223 in number while the total population of Punjab is 117.7 million. Transgender population in urban areas is more than double of that in rural Punjab. There are 4,977 transgender people in urban areas of the province as compared to 2,246 in the rural areas.

What strikes in the Health Report is the rising number of caesarean cases which is not good and considerable decrease in post-natal care visits, but we must not overlook the fact that these are figures from 2018. Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is still high with 53.7 deaths per thousand live births in 2020 while under 5 mortality rate is 73.3 per 1000 live births in 2020. In four years, the fertility rate has gone down from 2.8 in 2016 to 2.5 in 2020. Maternal mortality rate is the lowest in Punjab as compared to other provinces.

In education, girls have more basic facilities than boys in terms of drinking water, electricity, sewerage, toilets, buildings, boundary walls and main gates. Also, there are more schools for girls, mostly middle schools.

The report on governance says there are 18 percent women among senators, 20 percent women are in National Assembly, 8 on general seats, 60 on reserved seats and one on minority seat. There are 75 women members out of 294 in the Punjab Assembly while two of them are ministers in provincial cabinet. In Punjab Assembly, 8 women are on general seats, 66 on reserved seats and one on minority. In general elections 2018, 47 million women voted in the country of which 27 million were from Punjab.

Special initiatives for women were opening of 107 day care centres in 20 districts, establishment of 16 working women hostels, construction of 44,983 toilets in 1539 villages, training of 15,145 women on basic life support by Rescue 1122, distribution of poultry units to women across Punjab, training in poultry farming, training conducted by Agriculture Dept and emergency services provided to 394,254 women in 2020, the report says.