The Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010 was the culmination of approximately nine years of organised advocacy, consultation, policy development, and parliamentary engagement. Starting from the formation of Alliance Against Sexual Harassment (AASHA) in 2001, to Dr Attiya Inayatullah, then Federal Minister for Women's Development, requesting the Alliance's assistance in developing a comprehensive ‘Code for Gender Justice’ at the Workplace, which showed that the engagement with stakeholders had begun.
Between 2002 and 2007, AASHA adopted a model workplace code of conduct and encouraged employers to adopt anti-harassment policies voluntarily. By late 2007 and 2008, efforts towards drafting the first legislation were made. Dr Fouzia Saeed drafted the proposed legislation on behalf of AASHA. On the 29th of September 2009, the Standing Committee on Women Development of the National Assembly issued its report on the proposed legislation, and by the 21st of January 2010, the National Assembly had passed the Bill. The Senate debated the Bill during its 58th session, and by the 9th of March 2010, it received Presidential assent and became an Act. It was published in the official Gazette of Pakistan on the 11th of March 2010.
Broader Legislative Purpose
Its legislative history is especially significant because it establishes that the law was not conceived merely as a mechanism for addressing unwelcome sexual advances. It formed part of a broader effort to address gender-based discrimination, workplace dignity, unequal employment conditions, and the absence of institutional mechanisms for redress. This broader legislative purpose was expressly recognised by the Supreme Court in Nadia Naz v President of Pakistan case, when it examined the parliamentary materials underlying the Act.
During Nadia Naz Review in 2023, the Supreme Court in Para 5 stated that it examined the Report of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Women Development dated 29.09.2009, the debates of the National Assembly of 21.01.2010, and of the Senate of 25.02.2010. These documents showed that the intent and purpose behind the enactment of the Act was to address harassment at the workplace which is prompted on account of gender and was not limited to a sexual form of harassment. The debates showed that the intent was to inter alia, give effect to Articles 11 and 13 of the Convention Against the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention Nos. 100 and 111 on Worker’s Rights, and to eliminate all forms of discrimination in the workplace, including gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment. CEDAW was actively discussed in the debates and considered such that there should be no constraint on women when they enter the workplace. The Parliamentary debates also show that wherever the word harassment was used, it was intended to include harassment in the form of discrimination at the workplace.
In a single ruling on the Nadia Sarwar case, the Federal Constitutional Court ignored established jurisprudence, placing an unreasonable burden on harassment survivors and undermining years of progress
Moreover, when this law was interpreted narrowly by the Supreme Court of Pakistan in 2021, in the Nadia Naz case, the Federation filed for review and disagreed with the narrow interpretation of the court which, as mentioned earlier, was then reversed in 2023. Prior to that, in 2022, the parliament amended the Federal law and clarified the scope of several provisions to avoid confusions and extended the protection to transgenders, domestic workers, and former employees. It also provided for guardians of minors to be complainants and for child-friendly procedures to be adopted where the complainant was a minor.
The FCC Verdict and Timeline Lapses
On the 28th of September 2026, the Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) uploaded a decision authored by Justice Ali Baqar Najfi in the Usman Shahid & Aqeel Abbas v Nadia Sarwar Case. The case concerned complaints of sexual harassment against the two accused by the complainant who worked at a bank. From the time the complainant first reached out to the President and the Divisional Head of the bank in 2012, to the time when the FCC gave its judgement in 2026, thirteen to fourteen years passed, which is way over the timelines as perceived within the law itself. The law requires complaints to be decided within ninety days and appeals within thirty days. However, the timelines within the law are meant only for the forums under the law itself including the Inquiry Committees, the Parties, FOSPAH, and the President of Pakistan. Once a case is filed as a writ in the high court, the statutory timelines under this law have no bearing. Even now, there is a very realistic chance for a ‘review’ to be filed against the FCC verdict by the concerned parties, including the Federal government itself, so ‘finality’ as to this case is still a question.
What the FCC has in fact done is that it has adopted an outdated and obsolete understanding of the law, interpreted constitutional questions without hearing the federation, increased the evidentiary burden for the complainants beyond what the law requires, and it did so without discussing the 2023 Nadia Naz Review in which the federation’s own perspective on this law goes against what the FCC has resurrected. Even in relation to the subsequent cases decided by the Supreme Court of Pakistan that the FCC does mention, it chooses to simply respectfully disagree with them based on its power under Article 189 of the constitution as opposed to offering any solid legal reasoning for disagreeing with established jurisprudence on the subject.
This also appears to go against the FCC’s own standard that it set for ignoring precedents of the Supreme Court that it set for itself in March 2026 where it said in the Shahbaz Masih case that, “any departure from earlier Supreme Court precedent would be reasoned, express, and principled.” In this way, the Federal Constitutional Court, with the stroke of one judgement, rolled back not just the settled jurisprudence in this area but also years of advocacy and movement for women’s rights, dignity, and safety at the workplace on the basis of power.
Cycle of Progress and Reversal
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that this has happened, and it does not seem like it is the last either. For too long, rights of women, children, and marginalised persons have been used as bargaining chips and have been easily dispensed with, whenever required—just like that. So easy it has been able to undo years of struggle that it has started to feel like the glass ceiling isn’t just there for each individual woman, but also collectively for their rights. Any time the stakeholders of patriarchy feel that too many rights, by their standards, are being extended to women, their soldier occupying a position in a high office having the power to undo any progress, comes and reinforces the status quo.
Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed wrote their seminal work titled, Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? in the year 1987. This is the year I was born. It was thirty-nine years ago. The book's central proposition was that women's progress in Pakistan has been neither linear nor secure. Women have repeatedly made advances through education, political mobilisation, legislative reforms, and participation in public life. Yet these advances have been vulnerable to reversals caused by authoritarian politics, patriarchal social structures, and the use of religion to justify restrictions.
Undermining Rape Safeguards
Women's rights organisations spent decades campaigning against the discriminatory consequences of the Hudood Ordinances of 1979, particularly the treatment of rape and zina. The Protection of Women Act 2006 introduced safeguards intended to separate rape complaints from zina and fornication proceedings. Section 5A of the amended Zina Ordinance expressly prohibited conversion of a rape allegation into a fornication complaint.
However, in Muhammad Imran v The State and another 2024, the Supreme Court, by a 2-1 majority, converted the accused's conviction for rape under section 376 PPC into fornication under section 496-B PPC. In her dissent, Justice Ayesha Malik rejected stereotypical assumptions about how rape survivors should behave. She emphasised that the absence of physical resistance or injuries does not establish consent and highlighted the importance of DNA evidence, dignity, and constitutional protections under Articles 9 and 14.
This however, did not deter the Supreme Court, and in Hassan Khan v The State 2025, the Supreme Court again, by a 2–1 majority, substituted a rape conviction with a conviction for fornication under section 496-B PPC. The majority relied on factors including delay in reporting, the absence of physical resistance, and the complainant's conduct to conclude that rape was not established. It also acknowledged that the complainant could potentially face liability for fornication. Justice Salahuddin Panhwar dissented, questioning the conversion without independent proof of consent. The National Assembly's Special Committee on Gender Mainstreaming subsequently expressed concern that such interpretations risk undermining safeguards Parliament enacted in 2006. The Punjab government's review petition was also dismissed in 2026.
A Disappointing Dialogue
Thus, almost forty years later since their book, not much has changed. When I was engaging with a group of senior human rights defenders who have had a legacy of championing human rights on the FCC verdict, the response of one of them really baffled me. He said, ‘All state institutions in Pakistan continue to carry the imprint of institutional traditions shaped over centuries by patriarchal, colonial, and imperial mindsets. The Supreme Court and the wider judiciary are no exception, despite important instances of progressive and rights-based jurisprudence. This judgment, unfortunately, appears to reflect the same limitations of thought that have persisted in parts of Pakistan’s judicial tradition over the past seven decades. Moving beyond these deeply embedded traditions will require time, sustained effort, and a conscious commitment to constitutional values of equality, dignity, and justice. But change is possible and the time will surely come.’
When I insisted that even after decades of movement, legislative reforms, and decisions by highest forums, rights of women, children, and other marginalised persons remained so dispensable that there was never a sense of finality attached to them because it was so easy for a higher forum to be created and do away with them just like that, he said, ‘Holding these institutions and those who exercise power within them accountable requires sustained investment in a collective social movement for reform. This is possible through aware and conscious citizens like you who are willing to speak in an unequivocal voice. Such a movement must be inclusive and, above all, led by those who bear the greatest burden of the system and its failures.’
I was utterly shocked and disappointed to say the least at this apathy and ignorance. If the women’s rights movement and our history tells us anything at all, it is that there has never been a shortage of ‘sustained efforts’ nor have women and allies ever shied away from it. The issue is not therefore, lack of sustained efforts or engagement. In fact, if there is anything that our history tells us, it is that whatever we have gained has been because of those efforts.
The Demand for Finality
The issue, as identified in 1987 in Mumtaz and Shaheed’s book, and today also rather is:
- in the lack of finality of that progress,
- in the constant threat that these achievements are under,
- in how easy it is to do away with years of collective advocacy by a single man in power,
- and the issue is in the silence of veterans and leaving those who bear the greatest burden alone with the responsibility to lead.
Lead towards what, if I may ask? More sustained efforts that can be later rolled back by the stroke of a pen? What is the point then if we are going to be in this constant loop for women’s rights? What is the point of all of those sustained efforts and getting laws passed and amended if one patriarchal soldier is all it is going to take to undo it all? It cannot be this way. This is not fair. What we need is finality in the progress, not the constant threat of its erosion anytime by the stroke of one patriarchal pen after the other.
This two steps forward, one step backwards loop has to come to an end. We cannot keep going in circles. It takes years of movement building and advocacy to get a law passed or a judgement rooted in rights, and then with the stroke of one pen, it is all dismantled. This cannot continue as the norm. How is it that years of efforts, advocacy, and progress are allowed to be rolled back with ONE pen? That means till the time we have even a single patriarchal and misogynistic person in a high office, we will have a looming threat over any and all progress. The generation before us appears to have romanticised the idea of sustained efforts and accepted it as an endless loop, but the fragility of the progress made cannot continue to be normalised. It is something that needs to be questioned more than it presently is. The onus is on ALL the stakeholders, especially those who have more experience and power, to come forward. Those most affected cannot be left alone in this. This is not their fight alone.
What we need is finality of the efforts that result in progress, the trust that it won't be undone with the stroke of a pen. The faith that once we achieved progress, it will go forward, not backwards. Can our stakeholders give us that faith? Can they give us that trust?
We cannot keep being brought back to square one after every few years and then be expected to carry out 'sustained efforts' to build movement and appetite for human rights! How can hard-won rights be allowed to be taken back just like that, and how long are we going to continue going in loops making efforts for the same rights? We should be making efforts to go forward, not to sustain ourselves on a loop that we are currently in. It’s about time we say: no more, two steps forward one step backwards, the only way is a way that takes us forward.