Fifty percent of women in Pakistan’s urban areas admit that their husbands beat them, a 2009 US State Department report on Pakistan has revealed.

In 2009, efforts were in progress to come out with a new domestic violence law in Pakistan. A private bill on domestic violence had been passed in the National Assembly in 2009, which required approval by the Pakistani Senate.

However, the Council of Islamic Ideology’s (CII) warning that a law against domestic violence will ‘push up divorce rates’ coupled with Mohammad Khan Sheerani’s objections (of the JUI-F), led to a deferment of the hearing in the Senate. Since then the government has not paid much attention to the matter and the bill has lapsed, The Express Tribune reports.

It appears that due to a fault within our social structure, even urban women not only tend to have a high tolerance for domestic violence, but also are often at the forefront of inflicting pain on other women.