The actor wrote in an Instagram story that we need to shape minds from a young age so cruelty is never seen as normal.

By Mahnoor | 1-10-2026

Actor Yashma Gill said Pakistan needs a better education system to help stop violence against women that comes from people wanting to know a baby’s sex before birth.

On Tuesday, Gill posted on Instagram about a news story. The story was about a man in Gujranwala who hurt his pregnant wife after an ultrasound showed they were going to have a daughter.

Gill wrote, “To teach all these men, a baby’s sex comes from the father’s sperm, not the mother.”

She also said schools should teach “basic manners, empathy, humanity, and morality” as a required part of their classes.

“Because clearly, something is failing us. I don’t know if it’s our legal system, our society, our upbringing, or a mix of all these, but these terrible acts keep happening,” she said, then pointed out that religious teachings, if understood correctly, could also help raise children to be caring.

The incident Gill referred to happened on September 27. Police in Gujranwala have arrested the man accused of attacking his pregnant wife in the WAPDA Town area. The case has been filed under sections 337 (wounding) and 354 (assault or use of criminal force on a woman to offend her modesty) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the FIR, the accused, Tayyab Mannan, had been forcing his wife, who is five months pregnant, to get an abortion because he was unhappy about the possibility of having a second daughter, as shown in an ultrasound.

The FIR says that during a fight over this issue, Mannan beat his wife so badly that she had to be taken to Gujranwala Civil Hospital for treatment.

In a video spreading on social media, the woman shared details about the incident and how her husband’s anger over having a second daughter turned into violence.

“We need to shape minds from a young age so that cruelty is never seen as normal, violence is never mistaken for authority, and another person’s dignity is never treated as something to bargain with,” Gill wrote in her story, which includes the video.
Going back to the reported incident, the actor, who is known for speaking out on women’s and animal rights, repeated her anger.

“A woman being beaten for carrying a daughter? Astaghfirullah,” she said, adding that the mother is not responsible for “choosing the sex of that child.”

Gill, known for strongly supporting women’s rights, talked about a big problem that still affects women in South Asia today. Families often pressure women to give birth to sons, and this is a very old and common cultural habit. It comes from a system where men have more power, and also from a wrong belief that sons bring better financial safety.

This harmful way of thinking makes women seem less valuable, and often puts their lives in danger. In 2011, many United Nations groups, including the World Health Organisation, made a joint statement about this issue. They said that preferring sons keeps unfair treatment going and breaks women’s rights.

Add to this a major lack of proper sex education, and you get a society where women not only suffer abuse for something they cannot control, but are also wrongly blamed for it.

Gill is right to point out these deep-rooted problems that lead to violence against unborn girls. “We desperately need to do better. As parents. As schools. As communities. As a society. Period,” she said.