by RABIYA JAVERI AGHA
The ‘madwoman in the attic’ motif has been studied, romanticised, reimagined. Yet she has always been misunderstood. She was never mad. She was simply a woman whose existence became intolerable, not because she lost her mind, but because she refused to lose herself.
In Pakistan today, that same refusal is enough to erase adult women from their own lives. Teachers. Lawyers. Executives. Mothers. Daughters. All over the age of consent. All locked away in psychiatric and rehabilitation facilities against their will. They are not confined because they are dangerous to themselves or others. They are confined because they said no: no to marriage, no to silence, no to families who demand obedience above all else.
In many ‘rehab homes’ across Pakistan, there is no psychiatric protocol, no independent evaluation, no court order. A family member signs a form, pays a fee and the woman simply disappears. Once inside, the clinic becomes a carceral space. Phones are seized. Visitors barred. Cameras trail their every move. Psychotropic drugs are dispensed without explanation. Refusal is punished with sedation. Protest is reclassified as pathology. Anger is not recognised as resistance but proof of illness. Staff call it treatment. Families call it discipline. In truth, it is punishment dressed as psychology.
The medical files of these women rarely contain a genuine diagnosis. Instead, they are filled with ‘evidence’ of disobedience. At admission, dubious lab reports brand them as users of ice or meth, yet no drug treatment follows. The only ‘therapy’ is coerced apology letters and forced compliance.
Women are taught to doubt their own memories. They are coached to smile for videos sent home, to stage obedience as evidence of ‘recovery’. There is no diagnosis, only correction.
The National Commission for Human Rights has received numerous complaints of forced detention in rehab clinics, where women were locked away for disobedience, refusal to marry, or simply for not vacating family property. Four of these women were found illegally detained in one clinic outside Islamabad from where they were rescued. The facility, registered with the Islamabad Healthcare Regulatory Authority (IHRA), operates in open violation of its mandate. Standards and SOPs are ignored with impunity, while the regulator looks the other way. Misogyny runs through its practices. Profiteering is packaged as treatment. Abuse is routine.
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