Violence and Discrimination against Women of Religious Minority Backgrounds in Pakistan

Abstract

The theme of this special collection of papers, the lived experiences of women who belong to religious minorities, has been a blind spot both in international development policy engagement and in much of the international scholarship on women, security and peace. Women who belong to religious minorities, who are socioeconomically excluded and are vulnerable to multiple sources of gender-based violence in Pakistan seem to have fallen through the cracks of the ‘leave no one behind’ agenda. The aim of this volume is to shed light on the day-to-day experiences of women and their families who belong to the Ahmadiyya, Christian, Hindu and Hazara Shia religious minorities in Pakistan. Each of the papers in this collection exposes the complexity of the intersections of gender, class and religious marginality in shaping the realities for women from these religious minorities.