Acid, honour and silence: Gender injustice

ON 5 June 2026, Quetta’s Civil Hospital became the site of yet another act of gendered brutality. Dr. Mahnoor Nasir, a young physician, was attacked with acid by a hospital staff member inside the orthopedic ward. Her assailant fled immediately, leaving her severely injured. This was not merely an assault; it was a grave act of gender-based violence and workplace insecurity, emblematic of the perilous conditions women face in Pakistan. The attack on Dr. Nasir is part of a continuum of violence that stretches across Pakistan’s social fabric. In June 2025, TikTok influencer Sana Yousaf was shot dead in her Islamabad home, hours after celebrating her 17th birthday. In 2021, Noor Mukadam was beheaded by her Pakistani-American boyfriend after rejecting his marriage proposal, a case that sparked nationwide outrage. In 2016, law student Khadija Siddiqui survived being stabbed 23 times by a former boyfriend. Each of these cases underscores the same reality: women who assert autonomy are met with violence, often fatal and almost always shielded by impunity. The events of January 2026 exposed judicial complicity in perpetuating this crisis. Pakistan’s Supreme Court reduced a rape conviction to fornication, cutting a 20-year sentence to five years and reducing the fine, reinforcing systemic reluctance to confront gender-based violence. Conviction rates for domestic violence, rape and so-called honour killings remain in the low single digits. In abduction cases, the rate is a dismal 0.1 percent. The judiciary’s failure is not incidental; it is structural, reflecting a broader reluctance to challenge patriarchal norms and tribal authority. One of the most harrowing examples of honour-based violence emerged on July 21, 2025, when a gruesome video from Quetta went viral. It captured the execution of a young couple, Ehsan Samalani and Bano Satakzai, for contracting a love marriage without family approval. Local “elders” pronounced a death sentence, luring the couple back under the