Women's Rights in Pakistan: Impact of Religious Beliefs and Practices and Its Implications

Abstract

This paper reviews the existing literature that examines the impact of religious beliefs and practices on women’s rights in Pakistan.  To address this research, we have selected 106 articles across the nations and scrutinize 87 papers from the literature based on religious beliefs and selected areas. The selected areas include health care, financial dependency, education, and employment. Moreover, this study addresses the religious beliefs and practices, like the concept of “wali” and other instructions, in light of the Holy Quran. However, the women in Pakistan are facing many challenges such as honor killing, harassment, domestic violence and physical abuse, etc, which have now been addressed by providing police helplines and a policy framework. Furthermore, the social and cultural norms in Pakistan have a significant impact on women’s rights, which has been thoroughly discussed. The findings reveal that the Family laws' gender-stigmatizing and religiously restrictive framework encourages violence and discrimination in society. While interpreting and enforcing women's rights to equality, this idea offers a framework acknowledging the coexistence of religious ideas and does not diminish religion or other beliefs. The role of the power elites affected by religious values and practices would be the true change and method of execution, even while there are legal channels for complaints and strategies through monitoring and evaluation procedures.

Keywords: Religious Beliefs and Practices, Honor Killing, Harassment, Domestic Violence and Physical Abuse, Violence and Discrimination