Civil Society

Between you and the state, in the space where neither family nor government reaches, sits civil society. NGOs, foundations, professional associations, bar councils, citizen journalism, mosque welfare committees, the Edhi Foundation ambulance that took your uncle to hospital. Pakistan has one of the most active civil society sectors in South Asia, far more than its loud politicians admit. Today we name a few institutions that have been doing the actual work for decades.

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, HRCP, founded in 1987 by Asma Jahangir, I A Rehman, and others. Independent, non profit, the most credible human rights monitoring body in the country. HRCP publishes an annual State of Human Rights report that runs to 400 pages and documents every major case of disappeared persons, religious minority attacks, women killed in the name of honour, and labour rights violations. Their Lahore head office on Aiwan-i-Iqbal Road accepts walk in complaints. They will not solve every case, but they will document it, and documentation is the first step to justice.

Aurat Foundation, established in 1986. Works on women's empowerment, legal aid, and information. They were the lead drafters of the Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act of 2016, the law that finally made domestic violence a specific criminal offence in Punjab with court ordered protection orders. Aurat Foundation also runs Citizens' Action Committees in 30 districts; if a woman in your extended family faces violence, the local Aurat Foundation officer is often the most discreet, professional first contact you can make.

Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, ITA, founded in 2000 by Baela Raza Jamil. Probably the most data driven education NGO in Pakistan. Every year they publish ASER Pakistan, a citizen led learning assessment that surveys around 200,000 children in 153 districts and reports what those children can and cannot read or do in arithmetic. ASER's findings are blunt: in 2023, only half of class five children in rural Pakistan could read a class two level Urdu story. Whenever a politician promises an education revolution, check the latest ASER. Promises last for press conferences. ASER lasts for years.

Civil society in Pakistan operates under pressure. Foreign funded NGOs were squeezed by the 2015 INGO policy and many had to shut. Pakistani only NGOs face Income Tax Ordinance Section 2(36) registration. Some genuine welfare organisations have been smeared as foreign agents to silence them. This pressure is real, and it makes Pakistani civil society fragile. The fragility is also why your participation matters. Twenty active citizens in a tehsil, even unpaid, make the local NGO twice as effective as any single big donor would. The state cannot reach everywhere. Civil society does. Civil society is, in the end, the rest of us.