The Growing Targeting of Women
disappearances involving women, signalling a significant shift in a practice that for decades
overwhelmingly targeted men. Women are no longer affected only as mothers, wives, or sisters of
the disappeared; they are increasingly being directly abducted, detained, and silenced. This trend
has been most visible in Balochistan, but cases have also emerged from other regions, reflecting a
nationwide pattern rather than isolated excesses.
Women who have disappeared over the past year include students, teachers, doctors, political
activists, and relatives of previously disappeared men. In several cases, women were taken during
raids on their homes or while participating in peaceful protests demanding information about
missing family members. Some were detained alongside children or elderly relatives, underscoring
the coercive and punitive nature of these actions. The targeting of women represents a deliberate
escalation: as women have become increasingly visible in protest movements and documentation
efforts, their disappearance functions both as punishment and as a warning to entire communities.
These developments occur within a broader, long-standing system of enforced disappearance in
Pakistan, one that has operated for years with remarkable consistency. Individuals are taken without
arrest warrants, held in undisclosed locations, denied access to lawyers or courts, and frequently
subjected to torture. Some reappear months or years later bearing physical and psychological scars;
others are found dead; many are never seen again. The practice has become so normalized that it
often fails to provoke sustained public outrage, even as the numbers continue to rise.
The increase in women’s disappearances is not an anomaly, but rather evidence of how the system
has evolved. Enforced disappearance has expanded from targeting suspected militants or political
opponents to serving as a method of collective punishment and social control. By disappearing
women—particularly those who protest or speak publicly—the system attacks the social fabric
itself, exploiting gendered vulnerabilities and stigmas to maximize fear and silence. In this sense,
the rise in women’s cases reflects the depth and adaptability of the repression, not a departure from
it.
International human rights organizations have responded to these developments with increasing
alarm. Amnesty International has repeatedly emphasized that enforced disappearances constitute
one of the gravest human rights violations under international law, describing them as a practice that
terrorizes entire societies rather than isolated individuals. Amnesty has warned that the continued
failure to criminalize enforced disappearance domestically and to hold perpetrators accountable has
allowed the practice to persist and expand, including into new, gendered forms.
United Nations human rights experts have echoed these concerns. Special Rapporteurs and working
groups mandated by the United Nations have urged Pakistan to end enforced disappearances,
disclose the fate and whereabouts of detainees, and protect human rights defenders and families of
the missing from reprisals. They have highlighted that cases involving women and girls are
particularly alarming, as they expose victims to heightened risks of sexual violence, social
stigmatization, and long-term psychological harm.
In recent statements, UN experts have also stressed that enforced disappearance is not only a
domestic issue but one with international implications, especially when intimidation and harassment
extend beyond borders. They have called on states to ensure independent investigations, judicial
oversight, and victim-centred remedies, emphasizing that disappearances committed as part of a
widespread or systematic attack may amount to crimes against humanity.
Civil society organizations and international advocacy networks have reinforced these calls, urging
the creation of independent monitoring mechanisms, gender-sensitive documentation processes, and
meaningful reparations for victims and their families. They have warned that without structural
reform—particularly accountability for security and intelligence agencies—recommendations alone
will do little to halt the practice. The rise in women’s disappearances, they argue, is a clear indicator
that existing safeguards are not merely inadequate but actively failing.
Taken together, the past year’s developments point to a deepening human rights crisis in Pakistan,
not a transient spike. The growing number of women among the disappeared exposes how
entrenched and adaptive the system has become. It also highlights the cost of prolonged impunity:
when enforced disappearance goes unpunished for years, it spreads, evolves, and targets ever wider
segments of society.
International reactions have grown sharper in tone, but the gap between condemnation and
consequence remains vast. As long as enforced disappearances continue without
accountability—and as long as women who dare to protest or speak out are themselves made to
vanish—the practice will remain a central instrument of repression. The rise in women’s
disappearances is therefore not just a new chapter in Pakistan’s disappearance crisis; it is a warning
of how far the system has advanced, and how urgently it must be confronted.
