Pakistan is in denial. It is in denial that it has a horrifyingly real problem of sexual violence. It is also in denial that this nightmare is something that cannot be fixed by moralising about ‘honour’ or ‘obscenity’ or ‘foreign cultures’. In the latest such mind-numbing case, a woman and her minor child are alleged to have been gang-raped in the Kashmore district of Sindh. Reports say that the woman was duped by the man who has been arrested into going to his residence; he had promised her a job as pretext. The woman says she was not only gang-raped, but her four-year-old child was also held hostage and raped.
Every time one thinks Pakistan can’t get any worse for women, it trumps its own record. In this case, we have not only heard this most horrific of stories but have also been subjected to a viral video in which the mother and child are seen describing what happened to them. For a country where there can be long-drawn-out debates on the age of consent when it comes to minors like Arzoo Raja, perhaps we should not be surprised that an incident like the reported Kashmore rape case took place, or that people seem to find it acceptable to share videos whose only purpose is to sensationalise such brutality. The video seems to have been made at the police station – or at least a space with many police personnel. It is best not even to try and describe the horrors that appear on that video which has been posted all over Twitter and the rest of social media.
The question is why that deeply disturbing video was made available to the public and who was responsible for this. Why are our police not sensitised enough to know how to protect rape survivors and victims? Why must a four-year-old rape survivor’s image be floating around on the internet? The idea of thousands of people watching the video is deeply disquieting. There is a dire need to sensitise not only law-enforcement personnel but also the rest of society to the insensitivity and callousness of sharing such video content.
This case is the latest example of the growing sexual violence in our society. How are Pakistan’s women to step out of their homes to work if every single step they take is with the painful awareness that no space is safe for them or their children? Will we only see outraged talking heads on TV and in newspapers and at press conferences promising ‘exemplary punishment’ for the perpetrators? Will this too be forgotten just the way countless such crimes have? For our progress as a nation, we can’t afford this denial any longer. We can’t afford to point fingers at other countries and their human rights contradictions when we can’t even protect a mother and a child from being kidnapped and raped just because the woman needed a job. Pakistan needs to set aside its denialist attitude and understand that no woman is safe in this country unless justice and law are followed and practised and implemented fairly.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/742963-end-of-humanity
End of humanity: edit in The News. Nov 13, 2020
Pakistan is in denial. It is in denial that it has a horrifyingly real problem of sexual violence. It is also in denial that this nightmare is something that cannot be fixed by moralising about ‘honour’ or ‘obscenity’ or ‘foreign cultures’. In the latest such mind-numbing case, a woman and her minor child are alleged to have been gang-raped in the Kashmore district of Sindh. Reports say that the woman was duped by the man who has been arrested into going to his residence; he had promised her a job as pretext. The woman says she was not only gang-raped, but her four-year-old child was also held hostage and raped.
Every time one thinks Pakistan can’t get any worse for women, it trumps its own record. In this case, we have not only heard this most horrific of stories but have also been subjected to a viral video in which the mother and child are seen describing what happened to them. For a country where there can be long-drawn-out debates on the age of consent when it comes to minors like Arzoo Raja, perhaps we should not be surprised that an incident like the reported Kashmore rape case took place, or that people seem to find it acceptable to share videos whose only purpose is to sensationalise such brutality. The video seems to have been made at the police station – or at least a space with many police personnel. It is best not even to try and describe the horrors that appear on that video which has been posted all over Twitter and the rest of social media.
The question is why that deeply disturbing video was made available to the public and who was responsible for this. Why are our police not sensitised enough to know how to protect rape survivors and victims? Why must a four-year-old rape survivor’s image be floating around on the internet? The idea of thousands of people watching the video is deeply disquieting. There is a dire need to sensitise not only law-enforcement personnel but also the rest of society to the insensitivity and callousness of sharing such video content.
This case is the latest example of the growing sexual violence in our society. How are Pakistan’s women to step out of their homes to work if every single step they take is with the painful awareness that no space is safe for them or their children? Will we only see outraged talking heads on TV and in newspapers and at press conferences promising ‘exemplary punishment’ for the perpetrators? Will this too be forgotten just the way countless such crimes have? For our progress as a nation, we can’t afford this denial any longer. We can’t afford to point fingers at other countries and their human rights contradictions when we can’t even protect a mother and a child from being kidnapped and raped just because the woman needed a job. Pakistan needs to set aside its denialist attitude and understand that no woman is safe in this country unless justice and law are followed and practised and implemented fairly.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/742963-end-of-humanity
Published in Pak Media comment and Pakistan