To Report Femicide in Pakistan Is to Confront a System of Silence

I did not become a journalist because I wanted to report the news. I became a journalist because I grew up in a tribal area of Pakistan and heard stories that never made it to the headlines. I grew up hearing about women who were killed, beaten, and quickly forgotten. Their deaths were discussed in whispers and dismissed as accidents, family disputes, or misunderstandings. When I turned on the television or opened a newspaper, their stories weren’t there. It made me wonder whether our lives mattered less.

This was the question that remained with me for a long time and inspired me to become a journalist.

Since becoming a journalist, I have focused on stories that are often censored, overlooked, or ignored by mainstream media. While these stories differ in context, they share a common thread: women bear the heaviest cost. Many are killed, abused, or displaced by violence. Others are left to absorb its consequences when men are killed, injured, or disappear. In a patriarchal society, women are expected to keep families alive even as their income, mobility, and access to justice are restricted. They are expected to survive while remaining silent.

Recently, my cousin was shot four times and killed. Her in-laws called it an accident, but those closest to her suspected something worse. Without a father or brothers to advocate for them, her mother and sisters feared no one would listen to them.

For years, I had reported on stories like hers. Suddenly, they were no longer the stories of others; they had become my own.

In many parts of Pakistan, particularly remote and tribal areas, women who die under “suspicious circumstances” often disappear from public record. Families are pressured into silence, investigations are weak, and questions go unanswered. When journalists cannot report these deaths, that silence becomes permanent—and violence against women becomes normalized. 

But telling these stories comes at a cost.

Throughout my career, I have faced harassment and threats simply for asking questions and telling these stories. Rather than responding to my reporting, many people have attacked my character and attempted to intimidate me into silence. Online abuse has become routine. Groups have been created to target me and spread misinformation. A protest was held against me. I learned to ignore much of it because I believed that responding would only distract from the stories I wanted to tell.

Then the intimidation moved offline.

While returning from reporting on a killing in my village, accompanied by my mother, a man whose face was covered stopped us and threatened me in my local language: “Stay within your limits or I will make you,” he said.

For a moment, I froze. My mother was shocked. We made our way home, thinking about what just happened and what to do. The threat was not only personal; it was a warning against challenging the system. It was a reminder that investigating violence against women in Pakistan is itself treated as an act of rebellion.

The debate on femicide in Pakistan often focuses on individual cases that go viral on social media and then disappear from public discourse. But femicide is not a string of random tragedies; it is a national crisis sustained by patriarchal norms, weak investigations, and communities that place family reputation above justice.

Femicide cannot be understood through numbers alone. Behind every figure is a woman whose life was cut short and whose death may never be seriously investigated.

For anyone who aims to combat femicide, it is not enough to show empathy after every single act of violence. We must work together to ensure that all deaths linked to women are investigated transparently and independently, regardless of where they happen. Journalists who cover gender-based violence should be given protection from threats and intimidation. Women should be able to seek justice without fearing retaliation from their families or communities. 

Until women’s lives are valued equally and every death is properly investigated, Pakistan will continue to fail millions of women who happened to be born into a society that expects their silence.