Every society has its pressure points. In Pakistan, they are those tender places where law meets custom, and custom often wins. As the country observes the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (GBV), a global UN-backed campaign running every year from 25 November to 10 December, the contrast becomes painfully visible. On paper, women stand protected. Pakistan has enacted laws such as the Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act (2010), the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Acts passed provincially between 2013 and 2020, and the Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Act (2011). Yet practice tells another story. According to the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS 2017–18), 28% of married women have experienced spousal violence, and only 34% of them ever seek help.

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It is a strange duality: a law tilted towards women, a society tilted towards men. And so the law, no matter how well crafted, becomes a whisper when society roars. That is where sensitisation enters, not as a political project, but as a 

cultural surgery.

Pakistan has already seen the power of such sensitisation. When terrorism scorched the Pashtoon belt, hopelessness ran deep. But along with the kinetic approach towards the militants, the people were approached with familiarity. The strategy targeted two extremes of the masses: i) the mullahs or clergy, for those whose worldview was shaped by the........

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