WSF Online Meeting – Legislative Lessons on Ending Violence Against Women with Maleeka Bokhari, 30 April 2026

On 30 April 2026, members of the Women for a Sustainable Future (WSF) network convened online to hear about the groundbreaking gender-based legislation championed by Maleeka Bokhari — barrister and former Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Law and Justice in Pakistan — and to draw on her experience to identify transferable lessons for their own national contexts, at a moment when gender-based violence is rising and political will to address it is falling. The meeting brought together parliamentarians, former parliamentarians, former government officials, academics, and civil society leaders from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Ireland, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom.

The session focused on the legislative lessons emerging from Pakistan's Anti-Rape (Investigation and Trial) Act 2021, which Ms. Bokhari championed and co-drafted as Parliamentary Secretary. She subsequently chaired the special committee overseeing its implementation. She outlined the law's development from a survivor-centred consultation process through to its key provisions, including specialist anti-rape courts, hospital-based crisis cells, a modernised definition of rape, and the abolition of two-finger virginity testing. She reflected on the political challenges of advancing such legislation in a predominantly male parliament, emphasising the strategic importance of data, male allyship, and framing reform as a matter of national rather than gender-specific concern.

The discussion that followed drew connections to legislative environments across the network, with members raising questions about implementation, social stigma, anonymity rights, and the limits of legal reform in the absence of broader cultural change.