'Aurat March': The women's rights movement that doesn't fear the authorities in Pakistan

Pakistan, a conservative country, is known for having a conservative outlook towards women. According to the National Report on The Status of Women in Pakistan, which was published by the United Nations in 2023, 50 per cent of women in the country have been physically battered, and 90 per cent of them are mentally and verbally abused by men regularly.

In the midst of all this, a women’s rights movement fights to survive in the country and is known for hosting marches on or near March 8, when the world celebrates International Women’s Day. The initiative is called ‘Aurat March,’ an annual socio-political demonstration held across different cities in Pakistan.

The march calls for greater accountability for violence against women and supports women who experience abuse and harassment at the hands of Pakistani security forces or men either at home or at the workplace. Every year in March, women were seen carrying posters and taking to the streets of Pakistan to make their voices heard.

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The movement with resilience

The first Aurat March in Pakistan was held on March 8 2018, in the city of Karachi. The marches were initiated by women’s collectives and came in parallel with the #MeToo movement in Pakistan. A year after the first March, the same initiative was started in Lahore and slowly took over the country, especially its capital, Islamabad.

It was in 2023 that the Aurat March in Karachi was held on a Sunday instead of March 8 to accommodate working women’s attendance. This year the marches are scheduled in different cities on different dates for the same reason. However, the Aurat March in Islamabad will be held on March 8 despite resistance from the Pakistani authorities.

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In a statement titled ‘2025: The year of the Aurat March Caravan’, the Aurat March Karachi organisers insisted that while traditions hold value, Aurat March has always been about challenging norms and making space for diverse feminist expressions. “For the first time, the marches in Lahore, Multan, Karachi, and Mirpurkhas will take place on newer dates but with the same passion,” the statement read.

The defiance

On Friday, the organisers of the Aurat March in Islamabad made it clear that they would go ahead with the planned demonstration in the capital despite not receiving formal permission to do so. According to Pakistani news outlet Dawn, the planned event will be conducted at the National Press Club to D-Chowk in Islamabad.

“We will have our show outside the National Press Club as per previous years and will try to march towards D-Chowk to mark the occasion [of Inter­national Women’s Day],” rights activist Dr Farzana Bari told Dawn on Friday night. Bari noted that the group had submitted a formal application to the Islamabad administration months ago, seeking permission to hold the march.

However, they haven’t received a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) for the event so far. Bari told Dawn that she also wrote to Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, requesting him to direct the Islamabad administration to issue the NOC. She hasn’t received a response.

Ramazan was the reason for the postponement

Bari told Dawn that the administration has instead asked the group to postpone the march since it is the holy month of Ramazan. Bari insisted that the organisation already conveyed to the authorities that the event will be held without any music or other fanfare in order to respect the sanctity of the holy month.

In their open letter posted to Instagram, the march’s organisers urged the premier to deal with the matter. “In the past, our organisers have faced brutalisation in the hands of religious fundamentalist groups, police and Islamabad administration, sending a very negative message to the international community regarding [the] status of women’s rights in Pakistan,” the letter said.

Instead of paying heed to their demands, traffic police in Islamabad have announced that due to the “ongoing law and order situation”, both entry and exit routes at Express Chowk and Serena Hotel will be blocked.

The impact

Despite all the challenges, over the years, these marches have initiated conversations about women’s rights in Pakistan. The activists argued that these demonstrations bring the topics of consent and bodily and sexual autonomy to the forefront in a country which continues to remain in the shackles of religion and shies away from talking about such matters.

“Effecting legislation will take time, but we believe that providing a platform for these issues will affect the consciousness of the public,” a Karachi organiser told Dawn. One such instance is that these Aurat Marches raised awareness about the “two finger tests” on the victims of sexual crimes. The petitions filed by organisers and other feminists in the country eventually led to the court declaring the archaic method as “illegal”.

“It is hard to imagine the #MeToo cases brought forward by educational institutions in 2020 happening 10 years ago. The Aurat March makes us believe in our ability to resist. The Anti-Rape Ordinance, despite its many flaws, had a lot to do with the increasing pressure created by women online and on the ground — we organised a protest around that,” another volunteer from Islamabad explained.

Irrespective of the outcomes, Aurat Marches have given many a platform to initiate a conversation in a country which has historically kept mum on women’s issues.