This Father’s Day, for the men who proved that real strength means standing beside your daughter, not in her way.
In a country where being born a girl can still feel like a curse, where a daughter’s laughter is often muffled by fear, and her choices silenced by “honor,” we are no strangers to headlines soaked in tragedy. We have become numb to the news of women killed for marrying by choice, for seeking freedom, or simply exercising their choice to say “NO”.
A girl is told she brings izzat into the house, and often just as swiftly she’s blamed for “tainting” it. Her laughter must be lowered, her choices monitored, her freedom conditional. In such a society, fatherhood is rarely about raising a daughter as an individual; it’s about keeping her within lines drawn by others. But every now and then, there are fathers who rip up that script. They choose love over patriarchy. And in doing so, they change the narrative.
This Father’s Day, we remember two such men—Shaukat Mukadam and Mehdi Kazmi whose strength as fathers didn’t lie in how tightly they held on to their daughters, but in how fiercely they fought for them when the world turned against them.
Noor Mukadam’s murder was brutal, senseless, and deeply revealing of the cracks in our justice system and social fabric. While many recoiled, speculated, and shamed, her father, Shaukat Mukadam, stood tall. In a society that looks for excuses when women are killed, asking: “What she was doing there, why she trusted him, why she didn’t leave?” Shaukat Mukadam refused to let those questions win.
He fought not just for Noor, but for every daughter whose silence is expected and whose death is dismissed.
In courtrooms and in the media, he became a voice for the voiceless. And in doing so, he broke the mold of passive masculinity that so often defines fatherhood in our part of the world.
And then there’s Mehdi Kazmi, the father of Dua Zehra a name that became a lightning rod for debates on consent, child marriage, and autonomy. When Dua went missing, then appeared claiming she had married by choice, many washed their hands off of the case. But Mehdi Kazmi didn’t. He knew his daughter. He knew her age. And he knew something was terribly wrong. While half the country judged Dua, Mehdi Kazmi waged a legal and emotional war, challenging a system that is far too comfortable to let young girls disappear.Even when public opinion turned cruel, even when institutions failed him, he persisted. And in the end, he brought his daughter back home.
We often speak about breaking cycles. But breaking them requires men who unlearn what they’ve been taught about masculinity, control, and shame. It requires fathers who do not pass down the same patriarchal scripts to their sons. It requires the kind of strength that doesn’t seek to dominate but to defend, to heal, to honor not with violence, but with truth.
What connects these two fathers isn’t just loss. It’s courage in the face of a deeply misogynistic culture a culture that tells fathers to protect their daughters’ “honour,” not their autonomy. That teaches men to see their daughters as burdens, not as individuals with rights and choices.Or,least of all, to be celebrated.
This Father’s Day, let’s not just celebrate the men who provide and protect in conventional ways. Let us honor the fathers who protect their daughters’ right to exist fully, to love, to choose, to be flawed, to be free. Let us talk about fathers who challenge a society that blames the victim more than the murderer. Let us remember Shaukat Mukadam and Mehdi Kazmi, not just as grieving fathers, but as symbols of what fatherhood should be in Pakistan.
In a society where men are rarely held accountable where they’re allowed to walk away from their responsibilities, remake their lives, or never confront the damage they leave behind, being a father who chooses to stay, to feel, and to fight, is not easy. Especially not when your daughter is the one being questioned. When her choices, her character, even her right to live are picked apart by strangers. And, you’re expected to hold the family together, comfort a grieving mother, face the courts, the press, the noise, and manage your own heartbreak in silence. It would be easier, in many ways, to disappear into the shadows like so many men do. But fathers like Shaukat Mukadam and Mehdi Kazmi didn’t take the easier road. They carried their grief with grace. They stood their ground when everything in this culture told them to let it go, move on, or worse, feel ashamed. And that’s what makes their strength so extraordinary not just that they fought, but that they chose to do so in a world where the odds were stacked against them simply for standing by their daughters.
To all the fathers out there who are doing the quiet, difficult work, who are standing up for their daughters even when no one listens, who choose love over ego, and truth over reputation, we see you. We hear you. In a world that so often silences women and expects men to stay silent too, your courage matters. Your refusal to bow to pressure, to bury your daughters in shame, or to accept what is unjust, is a quiet kind of bravery – one we all admire. You may not make headlines. You may be fighting behind closed doors, in courtrooms, in family gatherings, or within your own heart,but your strength does not go unnoticed. You are breaking the cycle. And because of you, there is hope for a generation of daughters who might finally grow up knowing what it means to be protected, believed, and loved.
