In recent years, significant progress has been made in Pakistan concerning legislative and policy action on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). But the real problem to be tackled is inadequate funding and implementation of such laws and policies. Men dominate all the institutions, development of policies and laws, implementation and enforcement of laws and the provision of justice all are in control of men. From workplaces to schools to law enforcement and justice systems, these institutions not only tend to be led by men but are often infused with the very patriarchal norms and ‘cultures’ that underpin VAWG So, it is critical to target the men to improve the situation and end the violence.

Justice remains in inaccessible and unresponsive to women and girls because of many reasons. The government, law enforcement agencies and justice officials can play their roles to end the violence.

Male engagement at the societal level is vital for gender equality and social justice. We have to take sustainable actions to challenge inequitable norms and practices of masculinity. Designing and developing interventions requires a movement-building perspective that can contribute fetch change in a community or society. This requires attention to fostering links between organizations and investing in movement-building opportunities, focused only on working with men on positive masculinities and those working on women’s empowerment.

The challenge of ending VAWG is the challenge of changing unequal relations of political, economic, and social power. Supporting the efforts of social movements, which are campaigning for gender justice as part of their social justice work, and targeting male engagement work within such social movements to enlist their support as allies is an important direction for male engagement programming to take.