Female leaders belonging to the ruling Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Tuesday came to the defense of Prime Minister Imran Khan after he faced backlash on social media for controversial remarks on rape in an interview with HBO Axios.

Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul, Parliamentary secretary for law and Justice Maleeka Ali Bokhari, and MNA Kanwal Shauzab held a press conference Tuesday to offer an explanation to the premier's remarks where he allegedly linked the way a woman dresses to the alarming situation of sexual violence against women and children.

Maleeka Bokhari said that the PTI government under the leadership of Imran Khan has worked on legislation for the protection of women and has taken strong steps to curb sexual abuse.

"We are strong women and we have been strengthened by our leader Imran Khan," Bokhari said.

She later took to Twitter to share that "for the first time 100 Million rupees have been allocated in a Budget for implementation of Anti-rape law".

While addressing the conference, Zartaj Gul said the PTI government believes in women's empowerment and the prime minister has taken many steps to ensure women get decent representation. PTI has mobilized women for the first time in Pakistan.

A woman like me became a member of Parliament from a tribal area is because of PTI's women-oriented policies, she said, adding that the premier is a "symbol of women's empowerment."

"We are proud of the freedom that religion has given us," Gul said, adding that women's empowerment is not possible without law enforcement.

The press conference came after Khan received online backlash once again for his remarks on sexual violence. While responding to a query by Jonathan Swan of Axios for HBO about the correlation between rape and women's clothing, Khan had stated that it is common sense that if a woman is wearing “very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men unless they are robots.”

The PM further elaborated that "the concept of purdah is: avoid temptation in the society.” He stated, “We don’t have discos here, we don’t have nightclubs. So, it is a completely different society, way of life here. So if you raise temptation in society to a point, and all these young guys have nowhere to go, it has consequences in the society.”

Khan's remarks did not sit well with women activists in Pakistan who took to Twitter to voice their concerns.

The well-known jurist who also co-hosts her show on YouTube called “Aurat Card” Reema Omer tweeted,

“This is the interview Earlier, PTI spokespersons argued the PM never attributed women’s dress to sexual violence but was speaking generally about pardah for both men and women Here the PM leaves no room for any doubt (or spin) A pity the outcry earlier had no impact on him”.