yat Noor, five, went missing from her Haripur neighbourhood, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She was found 15 days later at the bottom of a well. CCTV footage led investigators to her alleged killers.

Anmol and Amina, sisters in law, were arrested in Lahore on a theft complaint. They did not survive the police custody. Their families have alleged torture.

Hina Javed, 45, was found dead in her washroom in Rawalpindi, hands tied behind her back, an electrical wire around her neck. Her husband, Faisal Asghar, and a domestic worker, Zeeshan, have been arrested. Her father in law, Asghar Ali Fayyaz, has also been named a suspect. The FIR alleges torture leading to murder. Her family says Faisal’s first wife had divorced him over domestic violence.

In Taxila, Shamso Bibi, 28, a social media content creator, was shot dead on a public road while travelling with her siblings.

In Karachi, a girl believed to be six was found dead. The body, wrapped in a sack, had been dumped in a drain in Quaidabad. The body had decomposed so that her family were unable to identify her at the scene.

Article 9 of the constitution states: “No person shall be deprived of life or liberty save in accordance with law.” Article 14 goes further: “The dignity of man… shall be inviolable,” and “No person shall be subjected to torture for the purpose of extracting evidence.” Article 25(3) permits the state to make special provision for the protection of women and children. None of this is ambiguous. There is no exception clause to argue over.

The Legislature has done its part. The Anti Rape (Investigation and Trial) Act 2021 created special courts and forensic timelines. The Criminal Law (Amendment) (Offences in the Name or Pretext of Honour) Act 2016 rewrote Section 311 of the Pakistan Penal Code so a killer’s family can no longer buy his freedom through ‘forgiveness’ alone. The Torture and Custodial Death (Prevention and Punishment) Act 2022 was written to prevent exactly what has been reported. None of these are weak laws and none of them were drafted by people who misunderstood the problem.

Every citizen is entitled to protection of life, liberty and dignity under the constitution. The governments are sworn to uphold it.

In 2017, the Punjab opened the country’s first Violence Against Women Centre in Multan, funded at over Rs 230 million, meant to place police, prosecutors, doctors and a court under one roof. It had received 4,104 complaints by the end of 2021. 147 of those resulted in FIRs; court proceedings began in four cases; and there was one conviction.

When families or lawyers point out the low prosecution and conviction rates, they are accused of politicising grief and of attacking institutions that insist they are doing their best. A father who goes to the press because police will not move fast is treated as a law and order problem, not a wronged citizen.

A state that reacts only when a case makes headlines is not enforcing the law. It is managing a news cycle. A government that legislates but does not consistently and credibly enforce its laws has not fulfilled its constitutional obligation.

Sahil, the child protection organisation tracking crime against children since 1996, recorded 1,914 child abuse cases and 3,172 cases of violence in the first six months of this year. These included 644 murders, 462 abductions and 132 ‘honour’ killings. As of April, only 52 of 364 registered inquiries under the 2022 custodial death law had become formal criminal cases. A police station cannot investigate a death its own officers may have caused. None of this requires new legislation. It requires the governments to fund and staff what they have promised to build.

How many children have to be murdered before a police station treats a kidnapping report as an emergency? How many women have to die in a lockup before a custodial death law stops being a gazette notification and starts being enforced?

A country whose governments keep writing protective statutes without building the institutions to enforce them is not protecting anyone. It merely produces paperwork for the next inquiry, the next commission, the next press conference after the next body is found. We do not lack laws. We lack governments willing to be held to their word.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore. He can be contacted at [email protected]