ISLAMABAD: The government in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province has established the country’s first “anti-rape crisis cell” at a public hospital in Karachi to assist legal cases involving sexual and gender-based violence (GBV), the city’s mayor announced on Friday.
In December last year, the Sindh government approved the establishment of the Anti-Rape Crisis Cells (ARCC) under the Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Act, 2021 to provide medico-legal certificates, psychological support, and legal services to survivors of sexual abuse.
“The [first] Anti-Rape Crisis Cell was inaugurated at MA Jinnah Road near Civil Hospital in Karachi,” Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab announced on the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
“This is an important development to curb GBV crimes.”
The inauguration ceremony was attended by senior officials as well as representatives from the United Nations Women and the US Consulate.
In March this year, Dr. Summaiya Syed, a top police surgeon and a focal person on Sindh ARCCs, told Arab News that it was a “groundbreaking” initiative on part of the Sindh government as Karachi, a city of more than 15 million people, only had 29 medico-legal officers and of which, only seven were women.
“[This] figure is not at all compatible with the number of women victims of sexual assault,” she had said.
Health facilities in Pakistan reported 626 cases of sexual assault on women and children in 2022. Among over 34,000 people who were brought to the police for examination in various cases, 5,325 were women.
