Pro-women Laws and Government Masquerading: A Description of Pre-independence and Post-independence Women Legislative Framework in Pakistan

This paper presents the historical account of women welfare laws in Pakistan in the light of political-historical events. This article is based on conventional content analysis focusing the women welfare in Pakistan under the different governments. The purpose of this research is to describe the original situations behind the pro-women laws in Pakistan. Present study is comprised of two sections; section-I deals with the pre-independence women legislative frame work while section-II covers with the post-independence women legislative frame work in Pakistan from 1947 to 2010. Under the new born state, first effort was made by promulgating MFLO, 1961 by the state but it could not uplift the status of women in the country. Even women could not get welfare under the banner of “Islamization of laws” in 1979. Again, a state effort was made by promulgating laws under “Women Protection Bill” but despite this promulgation of a number of laws in the present century, much remains to be done for such oppressed group. They are still in social malaise and face poverty, discrimination, violence, and disparity on different grounds. Observing from the historical account, discriminatory welfare measures deny women constitutionally guaranteed parity and protections. Hence; seems to be suppressing women status through anti-welfare steps in Pakistan. Pakistan should repeal all such laws, including the discriminatory legislation, to end the state-certified gender disparity that has destabilized women’s welfare and self-assurance and has promoted violence and intolerance in the country