Quetta, Feb 17 (IANS) The Baloch Women Forum (BWF) has written to the international community drawing attention to what it described as persistent human rights abuses carried out by Pakistani forces across Balochistan, particularly a growing wave of enforced disappearance of Baloch women.
In its statement, the forum stated that Baloch women have emerged as the new victims of enforced disappearances, calling the practice illegal and morally reprehensible as well as a violation of international norms. It accused Pakistan’s state institutions of carrying out these actions without following proper legal procedures.
“For years, the indigenous people here have suffered from a humanitarian crisis and war, which are continued to now. Enforced disappearances, discouraged globally as an evil act, are the common practices here, involving the law enforcement agencies. Fake encounters and targeted murders have been accelerated where civilians are forced to die, unbeknownst of their crime, while the illegal channels of state persecution are rarely questioned and made accountable for,” the BWF stated.
Highlighting the atrocities on civilians across the province, by Pakistani authorities, the forum further said, “Amid all the genocidal policies, adopted by key state institutions towards the Baloch, the inhabitants have forgotten that they deserve several other rights, including job opportunities, free treatment and education and so forth. What they want and fear the most is the right to breathe and dignity.”
The BWF emphasised that international treaties, laws, conventions and resolutions concerning human rights protection are not meant for one country, nation, or region, but the entire world.
It highlighted that in 2025 alone, 17 Baloch women were subjected to enforced disappearances, with one more reported on January 13. The forum alleged that 90 per cent of them were directly abducted by Pakistani security forces, including the “notorious” Counter-Terrorism Department, while the remaining 10 per cent were forcibly disappeared by Pakistan-backed militias.
Despite widespread brutalities on Baloch people, including women and children, the BWF asserted that Pakistani media has adopted a biased approach.
“With all the eye-witnesses, protests organised by victim families and records, the Pakistani media only levies blame and becomes a judge instead of becoming a neutral party in our issue. You can never see a media report on Baloch women abduction but lies, allegations and never-ever-grounded reporting. We want to speak. We want to tell our stories. We have testimonies. We are testimonies to all the brute we face at the hands of the state institutions,” the forum stressed.
“But our voice, because it is oppressed, never reaches out on international media, but only social media, where we do not only chant slogans of justice, but also accountability and media attention,” it added.
The BWF called on the global community not to rely on secondary evidence, but to visit Balochistan firsthand or approach the indigenous people to report on their grievances.
–IANS
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