Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) has witnessed significant unrest throughout June and July 2026. What began as demonstrations over governance and political representation has developed into one of the region's most serious periods of instability in recent years. Clashes between protesters and security forces have resulted in deaths, injuries, communication disruptions, and growing concern from human rights organizations.

As a youth-led humanitarian initiative, Project Sehar believes that understanding the facts is the first step toward meaningful awareness and compassion.

What Triggered the Protests

The protests are being led primarily by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JKJAAC), a coalition that has raised demands related to governance and political reforms. One of the major issues is opposition to the reservation of 12 seats in the Azad Jammu & Kashmir Legislative Assembly for refugees from Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir living elsewhere in Pakistan. Protesters argue that these seats reduce the political influence of local residents, and have also demanded greater transparency and accountability in governance.

The AJK government and Pakistan's federal authorities have stated that many of the protesters' demands have already been accepted, while maintaining that public order must be protected. Protest leaders dispute that the remaining key concerns have been resolved.

Escalation of Violence

The situation worsened in late July as protests coincided with regional elections. Reports from Reuters indicate that violent clashes resulted in multiple deaths and injuries among both protesters and security personnel. Authorities reported attacks on police and security forces, while protesters and civil society groups alleged excessive use of force against demonstrators. Because the parties involved present different accounts, several organizations have called for independent investigations.

Contested Accounts

Government and protest leaders continue to disagree on which demands remain unresolved — a divide that underlines why independent, transparent investigation matters.

Impact on Daily Life

The unrest has affected ordinary people across parts of Azad Kashmir:

• Schools and businesses have temporarily closed in some areas.
• Public transport and banking services have faced disruptions.
• Internet and mobile communication restrictions have affected families and businesses.
• Hospitals have treated large numbers of injured people, placing additional pressure on healthcare services.
• Daily wage workers and small business owners have experienced financial hardship due to prolonged shutdowns.

Human Rights Concerns

International human rights organizations and independent observers have expressed concern about reports of civilian casualties, restrictions on communication, and allegations of excessive force. They have urged transparent, impartial investigations into the violence and called for the protection of fundamental rights, including peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. Pakistani authorities have rejected some allegations and have stated that security operations are necessary to maintain public order and respond to armed elements involved in the unrest.

Political conflicts often dominate headlines, but the greatest burden is usually carried by ordinary people.

Why This Matters

Families face uncertainty, businesses struggle to survive, children experience disruptions to education, and communities endure fear and instability. Regardless of political opinions, protecting civilians, respecting human rights, and promoting peaceful dialogue remain essential.

Awareness should inspire empathy — not division.

Pakistan is home to one of the largest out-of-school populations in the world. UNICEF's most recent figures put the number at over 25 million children, including roughly 13.4 million girls, and separate estimates from Save the Children put the total closer to 26 million, or 38 per cent of all school-age children, with more girls missing from classrooms than boys nationwide.

The conversation around this crisis often assumes it is a village problem — something happening far from Pakistan's cities. The data, and the lived experience of girls in Karachi, Lahore, and other urban centres, tells a more complicated story.

The Scale of the Crisis

A national household survey conducted between late 2024 and mid-2025 found that 28 per cent of school-age children, roughly 20 million, remain out of school, with rural girls in Sindh and Balochistan facing the steepest exclusion. Separate education statistics from 2022–23 show that 13.71 million girls were out of school that year alone, and that girls are about 7 per cent less likely to attend school than boys — 41.5 per cent of girls remain out of school compared to 34.9 per cent of boys, from primary through higher secondary level.

The gap widens sharply by province. In Balochistan, an estimated 75 to 86 per cent of girls are missing out on education or never reach grade 10. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, the number of out-of-school girls now exceeds the number of out-of-school boys. Nationally, as many as 70 per cent of girls who start early schooling drop out at some stage before completing secondary school.

Not Just a Village Problem

Some of the most detailed field research on this crisis, including interviews conducted by Human Rights Watch across Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, and Quetta, found the same barriers repeating in dense urban neighbourhoods as in rural districts — child labour, gender discrimination, child marriage, sexual harassment, and a shortage of schools, especially for girls once they reach secondary age.

In cities, government secondary schools and colleges are in far shorter supply than primary schools, creating what researchers describe as an "upward bottleneck": girls who complete primary school in a city like Karachi may simply have nowhere nearby to continue. Families who migrated to urban areas hoping for better opportunities often find themselves choosing between feeding their children and educating their daughters, a trade-off that low-income households face as acutely in city slums as in rural villages.

A study of urban slum communities in Lahore found that women married as children, many between the ages of 11 and 17, were overwhelmingly poor, uneducated, and working as housemaids. Researchers found that some low-income urban families viewed early marriage as a way to protect daughters from harassment or premarital relationships — a decision made possible, in part, because school was no longer seen as a realistic path forward.

The Daily Barriers That Push Girls Out

Rarely does a girl leave school because of one single event. More often, it is an accumulation of daily pressures — the same pressures showing up again and again in interviews with families across the country:

• The commute. A shortage of nearby schools means many girls walk long distances to class, often facing harassment from men on the street, near school gates, or on transport — a daily deterrent that wears families down over time.
• The bottleneck after primary school. Middle and secondary schools for girls are far scarcer than primary schools, in cities and villages alike, so girls who finish primary school often have nowhere within reach to continue.
• The cost of choosing. With education spending at a record low of roughly 0.8 per cent of GDP, many government schools remain under-resourced, pushing low-income families toward costly private options or toward pulling daughters out entirely.
• Child marriage. An estimated 21 per cent of Pakistani girls marry before turning 18, a practice that sharply raises school dropout and is sometimes chosen by families, urban and rural, as a perceived safeguard against harassment or poverty.
• Household and caregiving work. Domestic chores and care for younger siblings fall disproportionately on daughters, especially where mothers also work outside the home.
• Missing female teachers and basic facilities. A shortage of trained female teachers, along with inadequate toilets and washrooms, discourages families from keeping daughters enrolled once they reach adolescence.
• Disruption and insecurity. Climate disasters and instability regularly interrupt schooling — the 2025 monsoon floods alone displaced thousands of families and cut off access to education and health services for children already at risk of dropping out.

Why Progress Has Stalled

Pakistan has historically spent far less on education than the 4 to 6 per cent of GDP recommended internationally. That spending has fallen consistently since 2018, reaching a new low of about 0.8 per cent of GDP in the 2024–25 fiscal year, with education expenditure dropping by nearly 29 per cent between July 2024 and March 2025 alone. Even where school infrastructure has modestly improved, the growth of girls' enrolment has stagnated nationally, raising concern about how sustainable recent gains really are.

A girl who reaches secondary school in Pakistan has already outlasted the barriers that quietly removed her classmates, one by one.

Why This Matters

An uneducated girl today is more likely to be married as a child, to face poor health outcomes for herself and her future children, and to remain outside the paid workforce for life — passing many of the same barriers on to the next generation. Closing this gap is not only a matter of fairness; it is central to Pakistan's broader development, health, and economic future.

Every girl kept out of school isn't a rural statistic or an urban statistic — she is a future being quietly narrowed, everywhere at once.