Legal response to sexual violence in Pakistan: Challenges in enforcement and access to justice

Equality Now recommends that the Government of Pakistan, provincial authorities and justice sector institutions take urgent, coordinated action to strengthen the legal and institutional response to sexual violence and ensure meaningful access to justice for survivors, particularly women and girls from marginalised communities.

Priority actions include:

• Strengthen implementation of rape law reforms, ensuring the expanded definition of rape and principles of consent are consistently understood and applied by police, prosecutors and judges.
• Address legal inconsistencies related to child marriage, including closing protection gaps that undermine safeguards for girls and expose them to sexual violence.
• End extra-legal settlements and forced compromises in rape cases by enforcing existing laws and holding perpetrators and community actors accountable.
• Improve police accountability and investigation practices, including mandatory registration of complaints, prohibition of evidence tampering and strengthened disciplinary measures for misconduct.
• Invest in survivor-centred medico-legal systems, including updated standard operating procedures, increased recruitment and training of female medico-legal officers and timely forensic evidence collection without requiring prior registration of a complaint.
• Strengthen prosecutorial oversight and judicial training, including capacity building on evidentiary standards, exclusion of past sexual history evidence and elimination of rape myths in court proceedings.
• Ensure free and accessible legal aid and survivor support services, including psycho-social support, victim and witness protection and regular updates throughout legal proceedings.
• Increase sustained funding for forensic infrastructure and specialised units, including properly resourced women’s and children’s desks in police stations.
• Improve monitoring and data collection, including gender-responsive and disaggregated data on reporting, prosecution and conviction rates to inform policy reform and accountability.