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Abstract
The aim of this study is to ask female lawyers about gender discrimination and sexual harassment in Pakistan, a conservative and patriarchal society. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among women lawyers working in the five largest bar associations in the province of Punjab, Pakistan (including: Multan, Bahawalpur, Lahore, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi). Women lawyers stated that gender discrimination and sexual harassment are prevalent. Most female lawyers experienced discouragement, disrespect, and gender discrimination by their colleagues, clients, and police officials. Female lawyers also experienced sexual harassment from male colleagues and litigants in their workplace.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS
The results of the study provide an understanding of gender discrimination and sexual harassment toward female lawyers, especially in Pakistan. It demonstrates the major challenges faced by female lawyers in a typical patriarchal society. The results of this study can be used by the leadership of the legal profession to make improvements for female lawyers. It can also help the senior lawyers to understand the problems faced by the female lawyers and take some practical steps for the betterment of the situation.
FUTURE RESEARCH
The study can be used as a base for future research on the issue of gender discrimination in Pakistan. This study only confines the viewpoints of female lawyers but future research can be conducted by taking into account the viewpoint of senior lawyers, litigants, and judicial officers. The current study is conducted in only one province of Pakistan i.e. Punjab, the future research can include the female lawyers of the other provinces and territories of Pakistan. Further, this study used the quantitative approach which generally lacks in-depth details; hence a qualitative study can be conducted on the same issue to get more comprehensive details.
RESEARCH LIMITATIONS
This baseline study has some limitations such as it does not have a very large sample size to generalize the overall trend in Pakistan and other sister countries. Another shortcoming of this study is that data is collected through a self-reported survey method which could be biased. The study adopted the quantitative research approach which generally lacks in-depth details that can only be obtained while using qualitative research approaches. Further, data collected through a survey method has its limitation due to population dispersions.