From a human rights perspective, a living wage becomes a fundamental right to ensure that workers not only meet their basic needs but are also able to live a life of dignity. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides the basis for a living wage for every worker in Article 23:

• Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
• Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
• Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
• Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

The implementation of a living wage can be justified on many grounds. Most importantly, it allows us to address several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the UN. For instance, implementing a living wage will directly contribute to the first two goals—no poverty and zero hunger (SDGs 1 and 2)—and the advancement of decent work (SDG 8). Further, the UN Global Compact, a corporate sustainability initiative in which more than 100 companies from Pakistan participate, ‘encourages companies to promote and provide a living wage as an essential aspect of decent work.’ A living wage is also about the dignity of individuals and their families while outlining employers’ responsibilities to their employees (Werner & Lim, 2016).

Years of neoliberal policies and reforms have made it difficult for governments to pursue policies that favour job creation1. Free market reforms in trade and finance have adversely affected domestic industry and agriculture in developing countries. Moreover, people’s purchasing power in Pakistan has decreased significantly because of high inflation and slow economic growth. This, coupled with a high population growth rate and vulnerability to climate change, has left the successive governments in Pakistan ill-prepared to provide jobs to a growing number of young people.

According to the UNDP’s human development index (HDI), Pakistan’s HDI value is 0.540, which makes it a country with a low human development classification. With an HDI rank of 164 out of 193 countries, Pakistan is only better than Afghanistan and Nepal in the region. Both Afghanistan and Nepal saw years of violence, which is not the case for Pakistan. As mentioned earlier, almost 40 percent of the Pakistani population lives below the poverty line. A government policy that closes the minimum and living wage gap will ensure that the poor can pull themselves out of poverty.

The post From Survival to Dignity – The case for a living wage appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has consistently raised its voice for the rights of the Cholistani people. In its recent fact-finding mission report of South Punjab, several issues related to Cholistan were highlighted, including a major one about alleged irregularities in land allotments. The report captured several testimonies from residents who expressed grievances about land distribution in Cholistan. In 2023, the residents of Cholistan decided to hold a protest to demand fair land distribution. However, the district administration refused to allow the protest.

Meanwhile, the Punjab caretaker government announced in February 2024 a new land scheme with about 26,000 Cholistanis as beneficiaries. Where the scheme was considered a minor success, the relief was only incomplete and temporary HRCP received reports reinforcing alleged irregularities in allotments of land and indicating that certain actors were manipulating local organizations to advance their vested interests in the region.

Considering the factors mentioned above, HRCP decided to conduct a fact-finding mission to Cholistan from 28 to 31 October 2024. The mission comprised Council member Sadia Bokhari, HRCP member and senior lawyer Asad Jamal, and staff members Faisal Tangwani and Salman Farrukh. The terms of reference for the mission were as follows:

• Document the implementation of land allotment schemes for indigenous Cholistanis and identify any irregularities and gaps, including any instances of faith-based discrimination in this context.
• Assess the role of state authorities in allotting land, including but not restricted to the Cholistan Development Authority and revenue officers.
• To assess the role of local rights-based movements engaged in advocating for indigenous people’s land rights in Cholistan.

The mission visited different areas of district Bahawalpur, including Yazman and Channan Peer, as well as various small settlements in Greater Cholistan, each linked to a toba (a large natural or man-made pond used as the main source of water for the residents and their cattle).

The mission interacted with more than 30 respondents in focus group discussions (FGDs) and informal interviews at various locations in Cholistan. FGDs were organized with representatives of as many as five land rights-based organizations, including Cholistan Difah Council, Tehreek-e-Aghaz-e-Huqooq-e-Cholistan, Voice of Cholistan, Tehreek-e-Aghaz-Huqooq-e-Cholistan UC-75, and the Association of Regional Infrastructure Development. The mission met with members of civil society, numberdars (village officers), lawyers, teachers, farmers, and workers. It also held a meeting with two officials of the Cholistan Development Authority (CDA). Mission members took notes on nearly all their interactions, which were compiled along with transcribed interviews where necessary. The mission also conducted a desk review of publicly available documents to verify and countercheck facts to accuracy.

The post UNEQUAL CLAIMS – LAND RIGHTS IN CHOLISTAN appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries to the impacts of climate change. This is because of various factors, including its geographical location, reliance on climate-sensitive sectors, socioeconomic conditions, and general lack of mitigation and adaptation measures required to tackle the impending climate disasters. Flash floods have become common, caused by glacial lake outburst floods in the mountainous north, riverine floods, and urban flooding. Storm surges and cyclones periodically pose risks of coastal flooding as well. Yet, Pakistan also consistently faces short-term and prolonged droughts in its arid and semi-arid regions, making it one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. Rising global temperatures have made heat waves a periodic occurrence. At the same time, air pollution in major urban centres has placed Lahore, Peshawar, Faisalabad, and Karachi at the top of the world’s most polluted cities. Amid the many obvious environmental hazards and climate catastrophes, issues surrounding land degradation and the loss of biodiversity have often gone unnoticed.

Resultantly, the UN Habitat Pakistan Country Report 2023 places Pakistan as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change. Germanwatch Climate Risk Index placed Pakistan at the top spot as the most vulnerable country to climate change globally, on account of the catastrophic floods of 2022. Using available sources, including Germanwatch’s Climate Risk Index (CRI), Pakistan has occupied varying ranks over time. In the CRI covering 2000–19, Pakistan was consistently among the top ten countries most affected by climate change, typically ranking around eighth globally. However, in the CRI 2025 report—which uses the latest data from 2022—Pakistan was placed first among all nations for climate-related impacts in 2022, based on measures of both human and economic losses.1 The climate crisis facing Pakistan, and its current adaptation and mitigation strategies do not suggest a significant change in this status quo. The World Bank estimates that the combined risks of extreme climaterelated events, environmental degradation, and air pollution could reduce Pakistan’s GDP by at least 18 to 20% by 2050.2 This loss in GDP will likely occur due to reduction in agriculture and livestock yields owing to increased floods and heatwaves and destruction of infrastructure. These statistics and rankings consistently highlight Pakistan’s significant vulnerability to climate change, emphasizing the urgent need for adaptation and mitigation measures.

This paper presents an analysis of how environmental rights have historically been perceived in Pakistan, the legislative and policy initiatives that have been taken over the past three decades, the role of the judiciary in advancing environmental rights, and the pathways forward to ensure that the introduction of Article 9A is meaningful, purposive, and effective.

The post The Promise of Article 9A – Bridging constitutional rights and environmental governance appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

— Article 18, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

In Pakistan, religious minorities continue to face marginalization. The transgressions of their fundamental constitutional rights, mainly the ‘right to profess, practice, and propagate’ religion or faith under Article 20 of the Constitution, by the religious majority have pushed the minorities over the edge. Their exclusion and ongoing victimization have compelled the minorities to prefer living in tight-knit areas that sometimes resemble slums. This report, documenting the violations related to freedom of religion or belief (FORB) from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025, shows a picture as grim as in previous reports.

The violence against the minorities has increased. There have been numerous targeted killings of Ahmadis. In one instance, a man was lynched just a short distance from a sizeable contingent of police in the middle of a busy market of Pakistan’s largest city. Places of worship have been partially or wholly demolished by law enforcement agencies, despite some of them having the protection of a high court verdict. Several incidents of grave desecration were reported from all over the country.

Most alarmingly, two individuals accused of blasphemy were extrajudicially killed by the police while they sought police protection from a hostile mob bent upon lynching them. This casts a shadow on our law enforcement agencies. Both victims were Muslims.

Christian and Hindu minority rights activists have repeatedly raise alarms about the forced conversion of young girls in Punjab and Sindh. This report cites numerous instances where the girls allegedly abducted or lured into leaving their homes were under 18, clearly violating the federal and provincial minimum age requirements for
marriage. In some cases, there is a clear pattern of abducting girls and then coercing them into marriage after their conversion to Islam.

In the last quarter of 2024/25, the country watched live-streamed hearings of a writ petition filed by the parents of young men and women who were allegedly honey-trapped into false blasphemy cases. The hearings revealed that the youngsters were criminally entrapped, allegedly with the collusion of Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials. Multiple attempts were made to disrupt the court’s proceedings by a ‘private entity’ that the petitioners accused of conducting illegal arrests.

Hate speech has been on the rise. Death threats were directed at the chief justice of the Supreme Court when the court granted bail to an Ahmadi individual. An elected senator was publicly insulted, particularly by some pro-right-wing social media channels, which also questioned his patriotism when he spoke out in defence of religious
minorities. The blatant ways in which these hateful comments were made were unsettling.

The United Nations and other human rights organizations have consistently expressed concerns about the treatment of minorities in Pakistan. Among those raising these concerns was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has specifically highlighted issues throughout the year through its press releases and fact-finding reports.

The report also notes with concern the tilt among the bar associations towards the right-wing forces as they continue to adopt positions favoured by the extreme religious parties over serious matters of fundamental human rights.

On the positive side, the federal government has passed the Child Marriage Restraint Act 2025, which establishes the minimum marriage age of 18 for both men and women. In another development, Punjab, Sindh, and Balochistan have joined Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in passing laws to establish research-based centres of excellence on countering violent extremism.

The post Streets of Fear appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

The mission’s terms of reference were to:

1. Assess the state of fundamental freedoms (freedom of expression, assembly, association, and movement) in
   Balochistan, with a focus on recent legal and policy developments impacting civic space.
2. Document the scale and impact of media censorship and threats to journalists, including violence, intimidation, and restrictions on news coverage.
3. Assess the scale of incidence of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and arbitrary detentions, particularly of activists, students and members of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC).
4. Examine the reported repression of rights-based movements and peaceful protest, including the use of anti-terrorism and preventive detention laws against non-violent activists and demonstrators.
5. Evaluate the consequences of Internet shutdowns, closure of universities, and other restrictions on civic life and access to information.
6. Assess the broader impact of conflict and militarization on civilian life, including the effect on education, civil society (including non-Baloch settlers), and the protection of human rights defenders.

The mission took place from 9 to 12 July 2025 and was restricted to Quetta for reasons of security. The team comprised HRCP chairperson Asad Iqbal Butt, co-chair Munizae Jahangir, Balochistan vice-chair Kashif Panezai, Council members Habib Tahir and Sadia Baloch, staff members Maheen Pracha and Fareed Shahwani, and
senior journalist Arifa Noor.

The mission gratefully acknowledges the insights shared by a wide range of respondents, including six political parties, academics from the University of Balochistan, representatives of the Balochistan Students Organization (BSO), members of the High Court Bar Association, activists from the BYC, and diverse civil society actors
such as labour unions, women’s rights defenders and journalists.

The mission also values the opportunity to have engaged with the governor and chief minister of the province, as well as senior civil servants, including officials from the civil secretariat as well as police
and prisons departments.

At the outset, the mission observes that this was at least the eighth such fact-finding mission to Balochistan since 2005. Many recommendations have remained consistent over the course of 20 years with little progress reported by successive missions—a matter that HRCP urges the state to consider seriously.

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Soon after polling began on 8 February, people realized that an internet and cellular services shutdown had occurred across the country; it remained in place until the following morning. This affected not only the polling process, but also how it was reported by the media. With last-minute changes in voters’ polling stations in many cases, people found it difficult to obtain the necessary information from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP)’s helpline. Some chose not to vote. The polling staff’s work was hampered, especially when trying to upload poll results. Observers found it difficult to share their reports in time.

The post A Tainted Election Pakistan at the polls appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

It would not be incorrect to say that unelected forces in Pakistan consider the electoral sys- tem as a mere tool to fulfill the claims of procedural democracy, which effectively does little to change the balance of power in favour of elected people.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has remained committed to the ideals of constitutionalism, democratic governance and the rule of law for decades. Electoral reforms to bring about free and fair elections are hence crucial in fulfilling these ideals. While ac- knowledging that elections everywhere are in need of constant reform, HRCP feels it impera- tive to address serious gaps in Pakistan’s electoral system, not only with regards to the obvious credibility crisis but also pertaining to how the principle of equal citizenship is com- promised in so many ways. It begins with the disenfranchisement of marginalised groups through the non-issuance of national identity cards, leading to an even wider gender gap for women and transgender persons, and continuing with the effective non-representation of minorities in all the electoral schemes devised for them so far. The whole system is further rigged in favour of the elite who, when elected, seem interested in amassing more wealth than in addressing the problems of their constituents.

Certain legalities related to the caretaker governments, independent candidates joining po- litical parties soon after being elected in their independent capacity, discriminatory constitu- tional clauses like Articles 62 and 63, and other provisions have also seriously affected the fairness of elections.

Add to these certain technological developments, such as internet voting for overseas Pak- istanis and the use of electronic voting machines, that have served more as controversies for political gains than subjects of serious research made available to the general public.

Like everywhere else, electoral reforms in Pakistan are a work in progress. At this crucial juncture in our political history, HRCP would like to initiate a dialogue on reforms through a comprehensive discussion paper, which is by no means the final word on the matter but an invitation to chart a path forward. We have been fortunate to be assisted in this task by one of the most credible researchers on the subject, senior political analyst Tahir Mehdi. It is our hope that this paper is carefully considered by all stakeholders in the spirit that it has been prepared, and leads to decisions to achieve free and fair elections that upholds the ideal of equal citizenship as enshrined in the Constitution.

The post Making Elections Credible appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

– Assess the implications of the political status of GB for the local population.

– Determine the extent and impact of curbs on freedom of movement, expression, association, and assembly in the area.

– Establish facts concerning the misuse of anti-terrorism laws—especially under Schedule IV of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997—against human rights defenders and political activists.

– Assess people’s access to digital rights in GB.

– Examine the factors responsible for the reported rise in sectarian tension. – Identify why the number of blasphemy cases registered in GB had surged in recent months.

– Investigate the forced acquisition of community-owned lands by the state for various purposes—including projects under the purview of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)—and assess the impact of this acquisition on local populations facing displacement.

– Investigate the impact of climate change in GB, with a focus on climate justice.

The team visited the towns and districts of Skardu, Gilgit, Shigar, Sost, Aliabad, Gulmit, and Ghizer, holding focus group discussions, consultations and key informant interviews in each location. The mission concluded with a press conference held in Gilgit on 8 June 2022. During its five-day visit, the mission met representatives of political parties, civil society organisations, women’s rights activists, the legal fraternity, religious groups, the trader 2 community, labour leaders, student leaders, victims of natural disasters and armed conflict, and government functionaries. This report draws primarily on respondents’ oral testimonies and key informants’ analysis of the human rights situation.

Given the complexity and diversity of the issues affecting the area, HRCP made every effort to hold extensive deliberations to document stakeholders’ perspectives, the challenges they faced, and the solutions they presented. HRCP is grateful to all those respondents who took the time to speak to the team (including many who travelled from other parts of the area to meet the mission) or helped obtain information on the human rights situation in GB.

The post Gilgit-Baltistan: The long wait for a constitutional identity appeared first on Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

This situation underscores just how integral environmental rights are to the realisation of fundamental human rights, such as the rights to life, health, food, water and sanitation. Without a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment, people (particularly vulnerable groups) cannot live at a level commensurate with the minimum standards of human dignity. This is why a new social contract must be envisioned, one rooted in climate justice—the concept that climate change is an ethical, legal and political issue rather than solely environmental.3 The disproportionately adverse effects of climate change on the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable communities in Pakistan must be acknowledged and the state’s responsibility to these communities fulfilled by building a more resilient system of governance that puts climate science first.

This study examines the impact of the floods from three perspectives: the right to health, the right to shelter and the right to livelihood. It also analyses the policies and (in)action that have led to Pakistan bearing the brunt of the impact of climate change despite contributing less to global emissions than other countries.4 It draws on expert analysis from a high-profile roundtable held by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in December 2022. The study is complemented by case studies of flood-affected persons and relief workers from different parts of Pakistan who were interviewed by six teams of human rights workers and journalists during a series of fact-finding missions conducted in September 2022.

While Pakistan has every right to demand climate reparations, it must also look within and articulate a strategy to ensure that its most vulnerable groups receive climate justice, and to secure all people’s rights to shelter, health and livelihood amid the climate crisis. Both state and society must recognise that the climate crisis is not a comfortably distant prospect—it is happening here and it is happening now.

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Farmers, whose lands the government has begun to take over, are up in arms against forcible evictions and various state pressure tactics, while activists continue to voice their concerns about the project’s environmental cost.

With numerous civil society organisations and rights activists stirring into action, HRCP constituted a fact-finding mission to scrutinise the various impacts of the project, most notably violations of human rights, and to present possible mitigation measures to assist landowners as well as other civil society partners. In this regard, a consultation was organised on 26 January 2021, mostly with subject experts, urban planners, environmentalists, lawyers and HRCP members, including chairperson Hina Jilani. HRCP members also attended various protests and meetings to collect data for this report.

A mission comprising Raja Ashraf (HRCP Punjab vice-chair) and Fatima Faisal Khan and Salman Sikandar (staff members) visited several affected villages on 4 March 2021 and interacted with residents to determine first-hand the human cost of the project and see facts as they exist on ground.

This report is based on material collected during these field visits as well as consultations and interviews with numerous stakeholders—including protesting farmers and environmental experts—held from January to March 2021. It concludes with a set of findings emanating from the mission’s work, along with recommendations for civil society partners on the way forward.

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