A woman from Balochistan’s Awaran district was forcibly disappeared from her home in Karachi on April 16, Dr Sabiha Baloch, a leader of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), said.
She said Haseena Baloch, a housewife and mother, was taken from her residence in Karachi’s Naval area during the night, and that her family has received no information about her whereabouts since then.
Dr Sabiha said the case reflected what she described as an increasingly “systematic pattern,” adding that the enforced disappearance of Baloch women was “no longer an anomaly” but had become “deliberate policy.”
“Enforced disappearances constitute crimes against humanity under customary international law,” she wrote, adding that any statement obtained during secret, incommunicado detention carried “zero legal weight” and amounted to “coercion, not evidence.”
She cited international legal protections and Pakistan’s Constitution as prohibiting such practices, and alleged that despite these safeguards, authorities had responded not with accountability but with what she described as “coordinated propaganda campaigns” targeting activists and human rights defenders.
“No smear campaign will silence us. We will continue documenting. We will continue speaking truth to power,” she wrote, demanding the “immediate and unconditional release” of Haseena Baloch.
The Baloch Women Forum (BWF) expressed “grave concern” over the case, saying Haseena Baloch was “forcibly disappeared by Pakistani forces” on April 16.
The group said her family has received no information regarding her whereabouts, adding that the absence of due process and transparency raised serious legal and humanitarian concerns.
It said cases involving women reflected what it described as a “dangerous escalation,” warning that such incidents formed part of an increasingly visible pattern of targeting women in enforced disappearance cases.
“These actions … leave families in prolonged anguish, forced to endure silence, uncertainty and psychological suffering in the absence of accountability or justice,” the statement said.
The BWF called for the immediate disclosure of Haseena Baloch’s whereabouts and urged authorities to ensure that no individual, particularly women, is subjected to actions outside legal frameworks.