Laraib Nisar
The world is going through a global pandemic since almost 2 years, which affected the developed, developing and under developed countries alike. Despite several efforts by the global health experts, the world still hasn’t found a comprehensive solution to the pandemic and the cure for the coronavirus disease. Similarly, now the world witnesses several country-specific pandemics as well. For example, countries with women rights abuses and violations seem to be going through a pandemic of idiotism, as the society always tries to justify the criminal and places blame on the victim.
Khaled Hosseini’s expression in his book ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ that “Like a compass needle that points north, a man’s accusing finger always finds a woman. Always,” holds completely true in the Pakistani society, where gender-based discrimination and violence has reached alarming levels. Unfortunately, the PM of the country is seen justifying a crime as heinous as rape by saying that if women wear what pleases them, they’re sure to be raped so it’s women’s own fault, not the rapists’. But then the statistics show that facing sexual harassment is common to all the women in the country either they’re fully covered, or wearing western clothing. Similarly, if clothing is the prime driver of rapes, why do we come across stories of children being raped? What was innocent Zainab wearing? Why do we see tapes of religious elite being involved in molesting young boys, are even boys not safe in our country? Why do we see incidences of females’ corpses being dragged out of their graves and getting raped?
Similarly, when we see a young, well educated girl being killed for something as meagre as a breakup, the society instead of condemning her brutal murder and questioning the murderer, asks why did the girl go to meet the boyfriend (murderer), while the parents of the murderer try to justify their son’s act by saying that he isn’t in the best of his mental health and has substance misuse (drug abuse) problems since a long time. Is it enough a justification to take away a human life?
If the assumption that women shouldn’t go out and meet ‘unrelated’ males holds true, then why did we witness the case where a woman, mother of four children, was strangled to death by her own beloved husband in the safety of her own house? What can justify a man opening fire which killed his wife and injured his daughter and son? No justification is enough to rationalize any of the mentioned incidences.
Unfortunately, these few examples fall in the small number of cases that actually get reported, while a whole lot of such incidents go unreported due to societal and cultural barriers. These recurring incidents of violence against women, show where our society is heading towards. Though we have some excellent legislation to counter domestic and sexual harassment against women, we lag behind in the implementation of such laws. Even when we get our hands on the criminals involved in such crimes, the adjudication process is extremely long and ineffective.
In order to make Pakistan a gender sensitive country, the most important role can be played by the law enforcement authorities and the judiciary. If these two institutions are held accountable for their measures to tackle and control crimes against women, there will be a significant decline in the frequency and intensity of such incidents. Moreover, the topnotch leaderships’ narratives and opinions about such incidents can help in not only empowering and supporting women but also lead to demoralizing the perpetrators of such brutality.
Another important step to decrease such crimes in the redesigning of cultural and social norms. Media can play an important role in this reform, by portraying strong and empowering picture of women instead of always showing women as weaker beings, along with gender sensitization of the curriculum which educates the younger generation of Pakistani males to empower women around them, and especially that women aren’t just the ones we have in our homes. Initiatives like equal employment opportunities can help in making more women financially independent, hence giving them the power to report any injustice that occurs against them. The strongest tool in containing such injustices against women is to make women of the country aware of their constitutional rights, so they can speak up for them in the highest echelons of the society.
The author Laraib Nisar is a Defense and Strategic Studies’ graduate, working as a Program Coordinator at Center for Research and Security Studies (CRSS), Islamabad.
