Structural Violence and Pakistan’s Health Situation

Abstract

Structural violence was first defined by Johan Galtung as “A form of violence wherein some social structure or social institution may harm people by preventing them from meeting their basic needs”¹ The concept has been studied extensively over the years and is considered as a major reason for strangled development in various resource limited settings around the world. The idea of structural violence implies that people in power fail to provide essential services for the people they are responsible for; this failure can be intentional or unintentional, nevertheless long-term effects influence the marginalized population adversely.²