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Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) advocates for the rights of Pakistanis Imprisoned Abroad through comprehensive legal support and policy reform. Our mission is to ensure that every Pakistani facing criminal charges abroad receives fair treatment, access to adequate legal representation and consular support.
In a groundbreaking effort, Justice Project Pakistan successfully repatriated 43 Pakistani detainees from Bagram Prison in Afghanistan between 2013 and 2014. This pivotal milestone set a precedent for future interventions and highlighted the importance of consular protection for overseas Pakistanis.
The absence of robust accountability measures hampers effective law enforcement and justice.
The repatriation efforts have paved the way for future legal protections and reforms.
Justice Project Pakistan has made significant strides in advocating for the rights of overseas Pakistani prisoners. Our efforts have led to successful repatriations and landmark legal victories that uphold the right to consular protection and human rights.
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Our efforts led to the successful repatriation of 44 Pakistani prisoners in 2020 and 56 in 2024 from Sri Lanka.
Our landmark case, Asma Shafi v. Federation of Pakistan (2017), affirmed the state's duty to provide consular assistance to Pakistanis facing criminal charges abroad.
The Saudi–Pakistan Prisoner Transfer Agreement in 2022 enabled the return of over 7,200 Pakistani prisoners.
In 2024, we achieved resentencing for 10 Pakistani prisoners in Malaysia following the abolition of the mandatory death penalty.
In 2023, JPP launched the Pakistanis Imprisoned Abroad database, a groundbreaking tool that tracks Pakistani prisoners across 88 countries. This initiative aims to enhance transparency and support advocacy efforts for the rights of Pakistanis detained worldwide.
Comprehensive insights into legal status and offenses of Pakistani prisoners.
Supports litigation and policy dialogue for improved prisoners rights.
Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) actively engages in international forums to strengthen protections for migrants and overseas detainees. Its participation in the Second Asia-Pacific Regional Review of the UN Global Compact for Migration (GCM) in Bangkok in 2025 marked a significant milestone, where JPP’s work was recognized as a best practice under Objective 7 of the GCM, which focuses on ensuring access to consular protection. This engagement demonstrated not only JPP’s alignment with international human rights standards, but also its ability to influence global migration discourse through evidence-based practice and litigation experience.
JPP also plays a key role in the Strategic Litigation Network on Migrants and People on the Move in Asia-Pacific, co-led by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN). As part of this network, JPP shares its legal strategies and casework related to mitigation, due process violations, and consular neglect — particularly in cases involving Pakistani nationals detained in the GCC countries and Southeast Asia. Through these collaborative platforms, JPP not only contributes to regional knowledge-building but also reinforces Pakistan’s visibility and responsibility in upholding the rights of its citizens abroad.
Together, these international partnerships strengthen JPP’s mission to ensure that the human rights of Pakistani migrants and prisoners abroad are protected, both in policy and in practice.
Justice Project Pakistan (JPP) collaborates with various organizations to enhance its advocacy efforts for overseas Pakistani prisoners. Through strategic partnerships, JPP strengthens its legal capacity and promotes effective policy reforms. These collaborations amplify the voices of marginalized communities and foster a more just legal framework.
JPP works in strategic partnership with the NCHR to protect the rights of Pakistanis imprisoned abroad. This collaboration focuses on strengthening consular protections and legal representation across multiple countries where Pakistanis face legal challenges. Together, JPP and NCHR have engaged with regional human rights institutions, diplomatic missions, and government stakeholders to address due process violations and improve access to legal and consular assistance. The partnership has facilitated cross-border advocacy initiatives in Malaysia, UAE, and Thailand, while working toward systemic reforms in how Pakistan responds to its detained citizens abroad. A significant achievement of this collaboration was the December 2024 High-Level Consultation that united key government ministries, NHRIs, civil society actors, diplomatic missions and international organizations to develop a coordinated national approach to protecting the rights of Pakistanis imprisoned abroad.
More Information >JPP partnered with KLLAC to deliver a pioneering legal training in Kuala Lumpur, focused on strengthening legal representation for foreign nationals imprisoned in Malaysia. This collaboration brought together lawyers, consular officials, and human rights defenders to address systemic barriers and heightened vulnerabilities faced by foreign prisoners in Malaysia —including language barriers, lack of consular access, and harsher sentencing. KLLAC’s deep-rooted presence in Malaysia’s legal aid ecosystem, combined with JPP’s expertise on overseas Pakistani prisoners, made this partnership critical in developing practical tools and cross-border legal strategies that advance access to justice for vulnerable detainees.
More Information >JPP co-hosted a training in Kuala Lumpur with the Malaysian Centre for Constitutionalism and Human Rights (MCCHR), focusing on legal assistance for foreign nationals in detention in Malaysia. JPP’s partnership with MCCHR was instrumental in ensuring that the training went beyond legal procedure and rooted itself in constitutional protections and human rights safeguards. With MCCHR’s experience in strategic litigation and policy advocacy, the collaboration enabled a deeper interrogation of how foreign nationals experience justice in Malaysia, from arrest to post-conviction. Their involvement strengthened the training’s focus on systemic reform and ensured it contributed to long-term efforts to improve access to fair trials and legal remedies for overseas prisoners.
More Information >JPP partnered with Equidem to co-author ‘Through the Cracks', a landmark report that exposed the structural failures of Pakistan’s migrant recruitment system and their direct link to wrongful imprisonment and death sentences of low-wage Pakistani workers in the Gulf. While Equidem brought deep expertise in human rights investigations and labour migration systems, JPP contributed first-hand case documentation and legal insight gathered from years of representing overseas prisoners. This collaboration allowed for a rare, evidence-based account that connected policy failures at home with human rights abuses abroad, informing our advocacy for systemic reform and consular protections for Pakistanis imprisoned abroad.
More Information >JPP collaborated with HRW to produce ‘Caught in a Web', a groundbreaking joint report documenting systemic due process violations faced by Pakistani prisoners in Saudi Arabia. Drawing on extensive field interviews conducted by JPP and HRW’s international advocacy reach, the partnership brought unprecedented visibility to the procedural and systemic barriers faced by Pakistani migrant workers, many of whom were coerced into drug trafficking and denied legal or consular support. The collaboration highlighted procedural challenges within the criminal justice system and opportunities for strengthened diplomatic protections for vulnerable citizens working abroad.
More Information >For more information about our drug policy work or partnership opportunities, feel free to contact us directly.
