Pakistani Hazara Shia victims: challenges, survival techniques, and protective needs

Abstract

News reports frequently convey acts of violence against Hazara Shias in Pakistan, but there is limited empirical scholarship about lived experiences of the community. To contribute to the knowledge in this field, interviews with Pakistani Hazara Shia victims, who have also lost immediate family members to violence, were conducted. Interviews with thirteen participants took place between February and May 2021. Thematic content analysis revealed two broad areas: Challenges and fears and Coping and hope for a better future. The former showed that participants struggled with: (i) uncertainty about which factor plays a greater role in violence; (ii) facing psychological warfare and living with violence by normalising it; (iii) discrimination and exclusion; and (iv) mental trauma, drug abuse, and suicide ideation. The latter thematic area uncovered that participants persisted through: (i) religious coping and spirituality; (ii) plans for migration versus nationalism; and (iii) hope that basic human rights and special quotas would be secured in the future. The study highlights that unless it is stopped, the violence against Hazara Shias will have to be accepted as an ‘extension of genocide’ which deprives living members of the community from essentially continuing with life beyond pure survival and suffering from ‘social death’.