The joint session of Parliament on Friday passed the Domestic Violence (Prevention and Protection) Act, 2025, aimed at protecting women, children, and other vulnerable members of households from abuse and harassment.
The bill, introduced by PPP lawmaker Sharmila Faruqui, will apply to Islamabad. It defines domestic violence as any act of physical, psychological, or sexual abuse—excluding offences already covered under the Pakistan Penal Code or other laws—committed by a respondent against women, men, transgender persons, children, or other vulnerable individuals with whom the respondent has or had a domestic relationship, resulting in fear or physical or psychological harm.
Under the law, offences that fall within the scope of the Pakistan Penal Code and occur in a domestic relationship will continue to be punishable under the existing penal framework and tried by courts of competent jurisdiction. The bill defines physical abuse as acts causing bodily harm, including offences covered under relevant chapters of the Penal Code.
Psychological and verbal abuse is described as a pattern of degrading or humiliating behavior, including obsessive jealousy, repeated invasion of privacy, insults, threats of physical harm, threats of divorce or second marriage based on unfounded allegations, false accusations against a woman’s character, abandonment, stalking, harassment, and coercing a wife to cohabit with someone other than her husband.
Sexual abuse under the act includes any conduct of a sexual nature that humiliates, degrades, violates dignity, or otherwise abuses a vulnerable person or any individual in a domestic relationship.
For the purposes of determining whether any act, omission, commission or conduct of the respondent constitutes “domestic violence” under this section, the overall facts and circumstances of the case shall be taken into consideration. If the offence does not fall under the Penal Code, the act of domestic violence shall be punishable with simple imprisonment of a maximum period of three years and not less than six months depending on the gravity of the act of domestic violence committed, and a fine of one hundred-thousand rupees and minimum of twenty-thousand rupees shall also be paid as compensation to the aggrieved person. In default of payment of fine, the court may award simple imprisonment of three months. Whoever aids or abets the commission of an offence of domestic violence shall be punished with the same punishment provided for the offence.
Petition to the court. (1) An aggrieved person or any other person authorised by the aggrieved person, through a protection officer, may present a petition to the court within whose jurisdiction; (a) the aggrieved resides or carries on business; and (b) the place where the respondent and aggrieved person last resided together.
(2) The court shall fix the first date of hearing, which shall not exceed seven days from the date of the receipt of the petition by the court. Upon receipt of the petition, the court shall, with or without issuing an interim order, issue a notice upon the person complained against and call upon him or her to show cause within seven days of receipt of notice as to why a protection order shall not be made against him or her for committing an act of domestic violence as alleged in the petition.
The petition made under sub-section (1) shall be decided within a period of ninety days and any adjournment shall be granted for reasons to be recorded in writing by the court.
The legislation also criminalises stalking of wives, children, disabled persons or elderly family members. Additionally, threatening physical harm, levelling false allegations and neglecting the care and maintenance of dependents have been classified as criminal acts.
The bill includes economic abuse and sexual violence among punishable offences. Failure to pay imposed fines may result in an additional three months’ imprisonment. Individuals found aiding or abetting domestic violence may face six months to three years in prison along with a fine of up to Rs100,000.
Source: The News
