Upholding human rights should underpin all policymaking. The challenges the report identifies will take years to address, but there are several ways … - Huma Yusuf

Those closest, and so most accountable, to the people are best positioned to protect their rights.

Not surprisingly, initiatives to criminalise disappearances are stalled. The thing is, you only silence critics when you have something to hide. And the HRCP's — documenting everything from to to poor enfranchisement — gives a sense of what this might be. The sad and shocking scale of rights abuses again raises the question of how efficacious the state's censorship strategy can be. When the public narrative significantly diverges from lived experience, the only outcome is more frustration among the people, who realise that on top of being poorly served, they’re also being lied to and manipulated.

The report also focuses on failings of our criminal justice system, an issue so endemic that we take it for granted rather than consider it a rights violation. But without a functional judicial system, we have no recourse or accountability. Justice in Pakistan is delayed and denied. And miscarriages of justice — such as Rana Bibi's 19-year imprisonment for a murder she didn't commit — are not atoned for.