TW: Rape
Rape.
An ever-growing sadistically, heinous crime, happening to people all around the world regardless of age, gender, and species. In Pakistan alone, over ten thousand cases were reported from January 2014 to June 2017. In 2019, 3881 cases were reported in the province of Punjab, which was a five hundred increase from the year before. Considering a country such as Pakistan, where topics of sex education are termed taboo, or where a woman is severely ostracized by society for coming out with such a claim, one can only imagine how many more cases cease to see the light of day.
During the early hours of September 11, 2020, a woman with her two children present, was brutally gangraped on the Lahore-Sialkot motorway after being dragged out of her car. The case garnered national attention, and a variety of reactions were observed; some sympathized with the victim, while some blamed her. Matters became worse when the Lahore Capital City Police Officer (CCPO), Umar Sheikh, made deplorable comments about the incident. According to him, the victim should have taken an alternative route, checked the fuel in her car and should not have traveled without her husband’s permission. Protests erupted soon after, with thousands of people taking to the streets, demanding justice, and the removal of the CCPO. Facing severe backlash, Sheikh later offered a lackluster apology and was not removed from his post.
The case remains unsolved, with the police yet again failing to capture the victims. It seems as if lately, such incidents are on the rise, or are being reported more often. Prayer leader Jamshed Iqbal attempted to rape a 9-year-old girl while she had gone to take Quran lessons from him in Jhelum. In Lahore, a woman was lured to a certain place with the promise of a job, instead, two men forcefully took her to a hotel where they then gang-raped her. A woman was raped at gunpoint by five men in front of her husband while the couple was returning to their home in Ferozewala, Sheikhupura district. Another woman, waiting on the roadside for transport as her bus had broken down, was offered a ride and was later intoxicated and gang raped by six men. A 16-year-old girl in Sargodha had been repeatedly raped by her landlord for a period of six months and a 17-year-old girl was raped by her stepfather in Gujranwala.
While scavenging through these cases, one of the things that greatly perturbed me was how in almost all of them, none of the perpetrators were arrested or brought into custody. This indicates how little is done to seriously look resolve these cases. Prominent government figures take ‘extreme notice’ of these incidents, and that about sums up all they really do; pertinent in the fact that most of these cases are left open without any justice being served. Nothing is really done, and Pakistan has become, or perhaps always has been, an extremely unsafe place for women. Our Prime Minister has suggested the castration and hanging of rapists once the accused have been proven guilty. Whether this will be implemented or not, and if it will prove to be effective or not is something only time will tell. This might indeed have adverse consequences, as some are of the opinion that the rapists will likely not leave their victims alive in order to prevent being convicted. The absence of the victim’s testimony will result in the preparator’s going free. Perhaps the best approach is to educate people, especially boys, on consent.
With these problems in mind, one must take into consideration how much power Islamic figures have within our country. It is worth mentioning how these prominent religious figures, be them Maulvis, Mullahs or anyone of the sort, have a considerable amount of influence on much of our population. I strongly believe that if they take the initiative of educating the public on violence against women, we will observe some positive change in society. Instances such as the likes of Maulana Tariq Jameel blaming co-education as a source of promoting obscenity while addressing the motorway incident might not have been ill-intentioned, but the focus should have been on the crime that was committed and what can be done to prevent such an atrocity from repeating itself. Placing blame on an already barely existing, co-education system without proof of any correlation deemed these comments to be off handed and undesirable, sparking controversy amongst the public.
A movement of change is desperately needed. Protests do occur, with people taking to the streets and posting about such cases on their social media accounts to create awareness. The Me-Too movement is gaining some momentum in Pakistan, and the Aurat March takes place every year as well. However, the problem has much deeper roots. The mentality of much of our people, which automatically inclines them towards blaming the victim needs to change. People thinking it is perfectly acceptable to engage in activities with others without their explicit consent needs to change. One gender being seen as weaker, submissive and inferior to the other needs to change. Rapists thinking that their hormones are to blame, and that sexually objectifying women is natural needs to change.
Whether it is pornography or entertainment involving the degradation of women, it needs to be very carefully assessed. Our precious country has become a place where women constantly feel unsafe, even within the vicinity of their own homes. Such a nation, where a significant proportion of its population have live in fear or discomfort, is no nation to be proud of, nor one which should be acceptable to its people.