IqraBanoSohail

For decades, Pakistan has sustained a loud, performative public discourse celebrating the rise of the professional woman. We take immense pride in the growing number of female doctors, lawyers, journalists, and public servants who break through cultural barriers to claim their space in the public sphere. But we remain dangerously silent on a darker reality.What is the hidden, terrifying tax these women pay just to show up to work every morning?

The brutal daylight acid attack on Dr.Mahnoor Nasir inside the orthopedic ward of Civil Hospital Quetta has shattered the illusion of progress. Dr.Mahnoor was not targeted in a dark, deserted alleyway. She was attacked while on duty, inside a public medical facility, by a staff member who had reportedly harassed her for months.

Consider the sheer gravity of that reality. If a doctor is not safe inside her own ward, surrounded by colleagues, where exactly is a Pakistani woman supposed to feel secure? This is not an isolated criminal incident, nor is it just another depressing statistic of gender based violence. It is a catastrophic failure of institutional custody and labor rights that force us to confront a fundamental question.Are women ever truly safe in the Pakistani workplace?

The short, painful answer is no. For a professional woman, entering the workforce is often a daily gamble with survival. While society pushes women to pursue higher education and join the formal economy to boost a stagnant GDP, the physical spaces where that work happens remain unsecured. We demand their labor and benefit from their intellect, but when it comes to their lives, they are frequently left entirely on their own.

Why is workplace harassment treated as a petty interpersonal grievance rather than a systemic security threat? Too often, institutional administrations and corporate managers minimize early warning signs to “save the institution’s reputation,” advising women to stay quiet or settle matters through informal mediation.When an institution fails to intercept, it becomes an active accomplice to the violence that follows.

This structural negligence directly fuels Pakistan’s ongoing “gender brain drain,” particularly in the field of medicine. We frequently ask why thousands of female medical graduates choose not to practice permanently after graduation, but we rarely look closely at the hostile environments we expect them to work in.

What makes this reality so difficult to accept is the sharp contradiction in societal enforcement. Hospitals mobilize instantly during emergencies. Trauma teams assemble within minutes, emergency wards clear space, surgical equipment is sterilized and ready, and protocols are followed with precision. A single delayed response can cost a life, so the system treats medical urgency as non-negotiable. Yet, when it comes to enforcing basic workplace safety codes, installing functional CCTV networks, or strictly regulating the over the counter sale of flesh melting industrial chemicals, enforcement suddenly stalls. It is a striking systemic failure that a public building can be entered by an employee carrying liquid fire,

The fallout of this failure extends far beyond a single hospital ward. Following the tragedy, the Young Doctors Association launched strikes, boycotting outpatient departments out of a profound, entirely justified sense of vulnerability. When doctors are forced to abandon their patients to protest for their own survival, the entire healthcare ecosystem fractures.

We can no longer allow public and private employers to sit back as neutral, passive bystanders. If an institution hires a woman, it must bear absolute liability for her safety. We must transition from an archaic framework of reactive policing to one of strict, proactive administrative accountability. Dr.Mahnoor Nasir survived, but the scars on our public infrastructure run deep.True justice does not look like paying for a survivor’s surgery after a tragedy. It looks like building a professional landscape where a woman does not have to risk her face, her career, or her life simply because she chose to serve her nation. Until institutions are forced to protect the women they employ, every corporate slogan on women’s empowerment