Recording cases of honour killing and sexual violence against women in Pakistan is jaded information but what has come out to the forefront in the past year or so is the glaring lack of governmental and police will to do anything about it despite President Pervez Musharraf's much publicised appeals to stop atrocities against women.

Pakistan's statement to the UN General Assembly on the subject of 'Advancement of Women' reiterated President Musharraf's stand on advocating the cause of women rights. However, initiatives such as opening the all women police stations, the first one of which was established in 1994, recruiting more women police personnel in nine provinces of Pakistan and increasing professional interactions between male and female police personnel through training programmes have proved to be virtual duds mainly because of government apathy to make these steps work.

If there is anything more disturbing than the prevalence of these crimes, it is the impunity with which they are committed. It's been six years since Samia was killed (6 April 1999), her killers are yet to be brought to trail despite exceptionally strong and credible evidence against them. Similarly, of 215 cases of women being suspiciously burned to death in their Lahore homes in the year 2004, in only six cases were suspects even taken into custody.

In 2004, Human Rights Watch investigated the Pakistan police's response to the pervasive problem of violence against women in the country's two largest cities, Karachi and Lahore. Despite the severity of the problem, the police's response has been indifferent at best. At worst it has served to exacerbate the suffering of women victims of violence and to obstruct the course of justice.

The findings highlight that the victim not only has to contend with biased officials and outright harassment at every step of the law enforcement process, from the initial registering of a complaint to the trial but also has to fight a grossly inadequate and discriminatory legal framework. Despite court orders and regulations requiring that female suspects only be interrogated by female police officers, they continue to be detained overnight at regular police stations and abused by male officers.

The Station House Officer (SHO), Mariam Qazi of the all women police station in Lahore, elucidated her methods when confronted by cases of marital violence and abuse. She said that the women police officials do not like to interfere in domestic issues. She did not even perceive physical violence a crime, and found the idea of 'marital rape' inconceivable.

When asked to elaborate on her methods of investigation in such cases, she said, "First I see the woman alone, calm her down, offer her tea and ask her what the problem is. Then I call in the husband and hit him, which is very humiliating for him ... to be hit by a woman. I ask him if he mistreats his wife. He doesn't have the courage to lie to me by then and tells me what the real story is. Then I turn to the woman and ask her if he is telling the truth....usually she says yes, he doesn't mistreat me, I was lying ...they (the woman) are usually after some money or something like that. Human rights organisations don't realise that these kind of women are cunning and do this only to get money".

The above insensitive account of a woman police personnel in charge of an all women police station is stunning. Police Lieutenant Judy Manning and Sergeant Laura Trammel of the US based International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Programme traveled to Pakistan first in May 2004 and then again in October to train Pakistan women police officers on "Victimology and Family Crimes". The main purpose of the training was to teach women officers to professionally deal with women victims.

SHO, Nighat Mujtaba concedes that a general apathy exists among police personnel including women police about violence against women for various reasons. "We are grossly underpaid and understaffed, the general feeling is why should we bother meddling in somebody else's private affairs, we rather stick to registering cases of thievery. However, women in Pakistan should take an initiative and report cases of sexual violence. Most of the times it is the women themselves who don't speak up because of fear of harassment," says Mujtaba.