Philippine E-Journals

Female Criminals of Pakistan: Personal and Socio-demographic Profiles

Gul Muhammad Baloch

Discipline: Social Science

 

Abstract:

Pakistan is the male-dominated society. In such a scenario of ‘subjugation’, we find females involved in crimes. This exploratory study was conducted in Women’s prisons of Sindh province of Pakistan. It was a ‘census’ population of 100 respondents. Findings showed inmates were involved in six types of crimes i.e. Drug Trafficking (26), Murder of Husband (25), Kidnapping (23), Murder (18), Robbery/Theft (5), Child Trafficking (2) and Extra-marital relationships (1). Marxist-Feminist criminologists mention poverty and patriarchal society as etiology of the causation of female crime; findings support this theory. Out of 100 respondents, 72 were illiterates; 76 belonged to very poor and poor families. Husbands of only 17 inmates had jobs, 5 were old/ill/begging, 11 were doing nothing/gambling, while remaining 57 were farmers / laborers. Only 5 inmates were treated normally while husbands of 36 inmates had bad and violent behavior. Husbands of 42 inmates were 10-20 years older than them. Thirty out of 100 women inmates had male co-accused; almost half of them were male family members.