THE Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010, was an important response to problems that directly affect women. It enabled the ombudsman to hear cases, many of which were resolved in women’s favour. A recent judgement has now eliminated an avenue that many women used to report harassment. The Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling, which narrows the interpretation of harassment, is a setback for women’s space in public life. Unfortunately, it appears to show that a major state institution is prepared to restrict rather than expand women’s safety at work. From birth to death, women and girls in Pakistan face limits on where they can go freely, where they may go only under certain conditions, and where they cannot go at all. Visitors to Pakistan often notice their limited visibility as one of the first features of public life. This absence should not be dismissed as cultural; it largely reflects structural factors. Restrictions on mobility — driven mainly by concerns about safety — help explain poor educational outcomes for girls, physical inactivity during adolescence, and their alarmingly low participation in the labour force as adults. The lack of safety outside the home is among the most frequently cited reasons for not sending girls to school, alongside poverty and families’ inability to afford schooling. The problem is intensified by the limited availability of girls’ schools in many parts of Pakistan. Undoubtedly, the shortage of schools and female teachers, together with poor learning quality, creates major barriers. Millions of girls live in districts where the nearest public school is more than an hour away and therefore out of practical reach. These supply-side failures prevent many girls from even imagining that they could enter a classroom. Perceived danger reinforces the barrier at home: some girls never enrol, while others drop out at puberty. At the very least, girls who are fortunate enough to live near a school should not be excluded because the journey is unsafe. Women’s limited ability to work outside the home is probably the most affected by structural factors. A Population Council and Unicef study, Adolescent Girls’ Voices on Enhancing Their Own Productivity, found that parents were reluctant to send girls to school because of fear of harassment on the way. This fear has been exacerbated by an incredible surge in social media-related harassment and cyberbullying, thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones and other digital devices. Requiring a chaperone or private transport immediately increases the costs of sending girls to school. Not surprisingly, an estimated 8.3 million girls aged 10 to 19 lack official status — they are neither in school, at work, nor married. This large cohort of girls depicts a decade of lost productivity, learning, and, above all, self-esteem. The state’s role is clear: protect the rights of all its citizens from harassment and unsafe spaces. It must remove these hurdles by providing structural solutions that enable girls to attend and complete school. Harassment laws that create safe routes and workplaces must be seen as educational policy requirements, not peripheral issues. Women’s limited ability to work outside the home is probably the most affected by structural factors. It is also the most costly in terms of losses to the economy and society. Female labour force participation rates have remained stagnant at around 22 per cent for the last 15 years. When women earn, they tend to spend more proactively, with direct payoffs for children’s education, health, and general welfare. But this will not happen if women feel unprotected at the workplace. Although women are generally accepted as schoolteachers and in some health professions, attacks on doctors and Lady Health Workers threaten even these spaces — many work mostly out of economic desperation. Employers are reluctant to give women jobs with longer, more secure contracts because of perceived hazards and domestic duties. At the other end of the spectrum, highly educated and affluent women participate in the labour force, cushioned by family support and private transport. The result is some improvement in women’s participation at the top end for highly educated, privileged women and, at the other end, for the truly desperate who must leave home to buy food and ensure their families’ survival, ie, domestic help, cleaners, and informal sector workers who do the most menial work. Women’s representation in Pakistan’s parliament is the only positive achievement in the SDGs’ gender indicators. Most elected women come from privileged families, but not all, as the pool expands. The trend began with the mandatory party quota for women. Otherwise, trends of an even more male-dominated parliament would have continued. The handful of women lawmakers have made headway in legislating, or at least highlighting, issues important to women and human rights. Comparable action is required in laws and public policy to expand women’s participation in every public sphere, especially formal employment. Increasing the number of women in decision-making and other critical positions — particularly in the police and judiciary — would make a tangible difference. A 30pc recruitment quota in the formal sector is essential. Greater representation in formal paid work will generate positive spillover effects in other sectors. It is especially imperative to address the extremely high unemployment rate (24pc) among young women who have completed more than a secondary education. Despite completing higher levels of education, this group is denied opportunities for secure employment. A quota system and positive supportive legislation will directly and positively affect the current generation whom we repeatedly say we care about the most. Women and girls must have safe passage and be guarded with assurances that harassment is a punishable offence. Recent measures to improve women’s mobility are encouraging, such as pink buses and scooter loans, but they remain too few and too far apart. Above all, there is a need to change mindsets; a public campaign against harassment of women and girls in public spaces must become a priority. Society must review its standards and morals and move forward, not backwards, in legislation, run bold campaigns, and do whatever it takes to correct this pernicious course of restricting, rather than expanding, the power of women and girls. The writer is country adviser to the Population Council. Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2026