Addressing Workplace Harassment in Pakistan

By Faisal Ali Rana, Advocate High Court and LLM Candidate at SAHSOL-LUMS

In Pakistan, workplace discrimination and harassment remain significant barriers to equality and fair participation in employment. Although Pakistan has constitutional remedies under Articles 4, 9, 14, and 25 of the Constitution of Pakistan, 1973, and criminal provisions such as section 509 of the Pakistan Penal Code, but experience shows that ordinary civil and criminal mechanisms have failed to provide women with timely and effective remedies against workplace discrimination and harassment. The establishment of the Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010 represents a constitutional commitment to protect dignity, equality and access to justice as practical rights. Similarly, Parliament has established Special Inquiry Committees and Ombudspersons to provide an accessible, victim-centric and fast mechanism to protect their fundamental rights. The important aspect of these forums lies in not only adhering to procedural protections but also implementing the laws substantively to give effect to the constitutional guarantees that would otherwise remain illusory. 

The Supreme Court’s judgment in the case of Nadia Naz v. President of Pakistan (PLD 2023 SC 588) is a landmark judgment in expanding the constitutional guarantees to include the understanding of harassment. The Court rejected its earlier restrictive interpretation that confined harassment solely to conduct of a sexual nature and instead held that harassment includes gender-based discrimination, workplace hostility and discriminatory conduct arising from unequal power relations between men and women. The Court relied upon dictionary definitions, parliamentary debates, the Statement of Objects of the 2010 Act, comparative jurisprudence and international human rights instruments to conclude that workplace harassment is fundamentally an issue of discrimination rather than merely sexual misconduct. Importantly, the Court recognised that harassment frequently manifests as humiliation, intimidation, exclusion and abuse motivated by gender rather than sexual desire, thereby making dignity under Article 14 and equality under Article 25 central constitutional values protected through the specialised statutory framework. By adopting a purposive interpretation, the Court affirmed that specialised forums serve not merely to adjudicate complaints but to eliminate systemic discrimination in employment and facilitate equal participation in economic life.

International human rights law further strengthens the constitutional legitimacy of specialised forums. Pakistan’s obligation under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) requires the state to eliminate discrimination against women in employment and ensure equality before the law. Likewise, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) guarantees equal protection of law, while the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) obliges States to secure equal enjoyment of economic rights. The Supreme Court in the Nadia Naz case expressly relied upon these instruments together with ILO Convention No.111, the Vienna Declaration, the Bejing Platform for Action and comparative case law from India and Canda came to the conclusion that workplace harassment constitutes gender-based discrimination incompatible with constitutional dignity and equality. Therefore, specialised forums enable Pakistan to uphold its international constitutional commitments. 

The Supreme Court of Pakistan considered the decisions of the Supreme Court of India in the case of Vishaka v State of Rajasthan (1997 6 SCC 241) and recognised that sexual harassment violates constitutional guarantees of equality, life and dignity, leading to the creation of institutional safeguards that eventually culminated in statutory specialised mechanisms. Similarly, the Supreme Court of India in Janzan v Platy Enterprises Ltd (1989 1 SCR 1252) recognised sexual harassment as a form of sex discrimination rooted in unequal power dynamics rather than merely sexual conduct. 

However, specialised forums are not immune from criticism. Critics argue that parallel institutional structures risk fragmentation of legal remedies and may generate jurisdictional overlap between Ombudspersons, labour courts, civil courts and constitutional courts. Others contend that internal Inquiry Committees occasionally suffer from institutional bias because employers exercise significant influence. There is also concern that procedural informality may compromise due process where serious reputational consequences arise. Furthermore, inconsistent interpretations between provincial and federal forums have occasionally produced uncertainty regarding the scope of actionable harassment before the 2022 amendments. 

Nevertheless, these criticisms do not outweigh the constitutional necessity of specialised forums. Their primary purpose is not to replace courts but to facilitate effective enforcement of constitutional rights. Now, after the 27th Constitutional Amendment, the ultimate guardian of constitutional rights is the Federal Constitutional Court of Pakistan, and it is their responsibility to protect the constitutional fundamental rights of the citizens. As illustrated in the case of Nadia Naz, the Court exercised constitutional review to correct an interpretation that had substantially undermined the legislative purpose of the harassment law. By adopting a purposive interpretation consistent with constitutional values and international obligations, the Court reaffirmed that specialised forums must remain effective vehicles for enforcing dignity and equality rather than narrow procedural bodies constrained by technical interpretations.

In conclusion, specialised forums substantially strengthen constitutional guarantees of dignity, equality and effective enforcement of fundamental rights. The reasoning of Nadia Naz v President of Pakistan demonstrates that constitutional rights require specialised institutional enforcement to address entrenched patterns of gender-based discrimination. While concerns regarding procedural consistency and jurisdictional overlap deserve continued legislative attention, specialised forums remain constitutionally justified because they convert abstract guarantees contained in Articles 4, 9, 14, 23, 24 and 25 into practical remedies. The Federal Constitutional Court, after the 27th Constitutional Amendment, now performs a vital supervisory role by ensuring that these forums interpret and apply statutory protections consistently with constitutional values, Islamic principles and Pakistan’s international human rights obligations.