Partition 1947 - Women At A Refugee Camp

A group of female refugees with their children. Both the women and children are in a bad state with torn or no clothes at all. They seem to have taken shelter in one of the then recently evacuated properties, abandoned by those who left for India.

Women were among the worst affected victims of Partition. The chaos and displacement made them especially vulnerable. They were molested, tortured and kidnapped. Many of the abducted women were forcefully converted to the abductors' religion, who also often married them against their will. There are several accounts of women and girls giving up their own lives by jumping into wells, preferring that fate than what awaited otherwise.

This image is from the collection of F.E. Chaudhry, the only known local Pakistani photographer who captured the events at the time.