This summer, Pakistan has passed through multiple gender-based violence cases, with a little pause in between. Several unreported cases, perhaps, fill the gap. From an 18-month-old toddler, Aizal Ali, to a married Hina Javed. The same fear came out of different ages, different times, and different cities: are our children safe?
Weeks before Aizal’s case in June 2026, a three-year-old Kalsoom was abducted outside her home in Karachi, and her body was found packed in a sack near her home. Her own relatives accused her. In the same month, Muntaha Zahra, just seven years old, suffered the same fate. In Sargodha, she went to a shop to buy sugar. Her dead body was found on the rooftop of the same shop. She was raped and killed. The suspect was killed in a police encounter.
In August 2026, Aizal was just eighteen months old when she was taken by a trusted relative from her home in Karachi and returned severely injured. Medical reports discovered signs of sexual abuse. While people were still protesting for Aizal, another child, Ayat Noor, five years old, went missing for fifteen days in Haripur. Even her father circulated a video appealing for his daughter. She was also a victim of sexual assault, and her body was found in a well near her house.
Another seven-year-old girl, Dua, was taken away, hurt, and killed in Karachi. Her culprit was also shot dead by police. Recently, a married woman, Hina Javed, was brutally killed by her husband. Her dead body was found in her bathroom in Rawalpindi. Her husband, a former NUST professor, along with his maid and father, planned her murder.
The news coverage of these stories is more about fear, and that is real, but a consistent pattern is noted behind these cases. The first thing is the culprit, who is not a stranger in most cases but a relative. Parents were used to warning their children about outsiders and strangers, but these cases exposed a different aspect.
Secondly, killing the culprit in a police encounter at the moment seems like justice, but it ends justice before it begins. Without any trial, a suspect was shot dead, leaving all other involved culprits free to live. Real justice needs proper investigation, not one killing that closes the case.
The third most important part of this discussion is the unfiltered internet use. It is the fact that sexual and violent content is easily accessible all over the internet. There is almost no restriction on this content that has influenced society’s behaviour. Smartphones are available everywhere with no real control over abusive and violent content, which is shaping people’s mindsets. We cannot take this as the only reason for excusing such cases; however, it also needs to be a part of the conversation.
Now what is our responsibility? It is not enough to be angry and only demand justice. We should turn this anger into some action. Parents should create awareness among their children regarding their bodies, inappropriate touch, and make them comfortable enough to share anything. They also need to be careful about the behaviours of close relatives who spend more time with their children. Moreover, they should monitor the content their children or any family member is watching and have open conversations about such topics. Communities should play an active role by installing CCTV cameras.
There is a need for improvement in our justice system. Alert systems such as Zainab Alert must be working instead of just being announced in the media. The approach of killing suspects in encounters should be ended so that families get satisfaction over justice through proper investigation and court trial.
Our society has now become comfortable with hearing a new case daily and moving to a new headline the next day. These names, Aizal, Kalsoom, Muntaha, Ayat, and Hina, are not just news; they were real humans. Their families have to suffer a lot; even society will forget to talk about them. They will reason that many parents will take extra care of their daughters. Reading and sharing such stories is not enough; we need to ask questions in our homes, streets, and at police stations until we reach better answers.
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Mariam Jabeen is a researcher with an academic background in gender studies and a professional interest in governance, gender, and civic engagement. A gold medal graduate of Fatima Jinnah Women University, she has contributed to research on right-to-information assessments of district administration websites and an assessment of political parties' websites in Pakistan.
