On April 11 a young Pakistani
school teacher was kidnapped, brutally gang raped, and then dumped in a field
in the Punjab province of eastern Pakistan.
She reported that five men had raped and tortured her for more than two
days. Such incidents of rape and violence against women are a daily occurrence
in the rural areas of Pakistan. Newspapers report rape incidents daily, and the
public is largely indifferent and de-sensitized to such repugnant assaults. In
a patriarchal country such as Pakistan, women are supposed to stay home and
obey the orders of men. Otherwise, they are beaten by their husbands in most
rural areas. The situation is not quite the same among the urban educated elite
class. However, women are still expected to obey their husbands, who are
considered the major decision makers in most families.
But why are Pakistani women
often so helpless? Why are they unable
to do much about the brutalities inflicted upon them on a daily basis?
One main reason is that with the exception of
a small, educated, urban elite class in Pakistan, the majority of the people are
illiterate and cannot afford such basic necessities of life as food, bread, and
water. Amidst sky-rocketing poverty rates, most men face enormous frustrations,
both at home and in the workplace. As a consequence, they resort to restricting
the women in their lives, treating them as their personal property in order to
assert some sense of power and control. The fact that they are uneducated does
not help, and given the reality that women are strongly discouraged from
pursuing education, they are not aware of their own rights. How will these
women fight for their rights when they don’t even know what those rights are?
Last summer, I volunteered
with War Against Rape (WAR), a leading non-government organization in
Pakistan. WAR is making great strides in providing shelter to rape victims, offering
them counselling, and helping them to report their perpetrators to the police, in
hopes the criminals will face justice. The punishment for rape is death in
Pakistan, but people are reluctant in bringing the perpetrator to justice due
to lack of evidence confirming that the rape actually took place. This is
largely due to the “islamisation” project that spread through Pakistan during
General Zia-ul-Haq’s regime in the 1970s when discriminatory ordinances were
put into practice. According to these laws, in order for a woman to prove that
she had been raped, she has to produce four male witnesses that can attest to
the crime. The system is absolutely ludicrous and steps need to be taken to
change these policies.
When talking to some of
the rape victims who chose to seek shelter at WAR, I was horrified to learn
that many of the poor women who come from rural areas are raped by their own
family members, and are victims of incest. Added to this ugly reality is
the fact that the majority of the cases of sexual abuse, harassment and rape
against women are grossly underreported because of the stigma and disgrace
attached to the crime.
If a woman chooses to report a rape case, her own family often disowns
her. Take the example of Dr. Shazia Khalid, who in January 2005, was
blindfolded, and raped by a masked army officer in the heavily guarded government-owned
natural gas plant. Her family was told to keep quiet about what had happened,
and the gas company denied that any such incident had occurred. The family of Shazia’s
husband, Khalid, told him to divorce her immediately. They felt her rape had
disgraced the family’s honour. It is
deplorable how women are continuously blamed for “bringing it upon themselves.”
The common refrain is “Look at the way she used to dress. Such scandalous
clothing!”
The reality is that whether a rape victim is adorned from head to toe in
a burqa or whether she wears “scandalous”
and “provocative” clothing, she is always blamed and nagged by family,
relatives and the media. I often wonder why a rape victim is harassed by the
media and her photo is splashed across the pages of every newspaper and
magazine? Why aren’t any photos of the culprit taken and published in the
newspapers? Shouldn’t the rapist be the one being condemned?
The criminal justice system and the police in Pakistan are not trained
or sensitized towards the problem and frequency of rape in Pakistan. The problem most victims of rape and other sexual
assaults encounter when approaching the police to file a First Information Report
(FIR) -- to report the crime -- is that the police often mock the victim and
blame the woman’s character, which supposedly led to her being assaulted in the first place. In
Pakistan, there are separate police stations for women and men precisely so
that women who prefer to cover themselves in a burqa can easily talk to a female inspector about a rape incident.
However, most female police stations do not even have the authority to file an
FIR, and so women have no choice but to approach the male police stations to
file a report.
Women hesitate to approach male police stations because they do not want
to share the circumstances of their personal trauma or the intricate details of
it with men. Even if some women gather
up enough courage to report the rape and the case manages to reach the courts,
the reality is that most victims do not get justice even after years of
fighting for their rights in court. Judges are not sympathetic either, and most
often the rapist is acquitted by the court. This is not due to the severity of
the punishment of rape, but largely due to the fact that in a patriarchal
society, men don’t like to accept the fact that violence against women happens.
On top of that, the fact that the women usually cannot produce four male
witnesses to attest to the crime results in the judge acquitting the
perpetrator. Something needs to be done to change the discriminatory laws that
were brought about by Zia in an attempt to “islamise” the country.
Recently, both Pakistan
and neighbouring India have received enormous international media coverage to
highlight the atrocities committed by men against women. The recent Delhi gang
rape cases in India, and the documentary films made on violence against Pakistani
women have stirred debate on the issue of rape in these countries. These are
actually significant developments since public awareness is the first step in
bringing about any kind of systemic change.
The best examples of the
growing possibilities for change can be found among those victimized women
themselves who have chosen to break the silence, fight against the stigma, and
raise their voices against the abhorrent practice of rape. Mukhtaran Mai is one
such exceptional warrior who decided to fight back. She was a quiet peasant
woman in the Muzzafargarh district of Pakistan’s Punjab. She was the courageous
survivor of a barbaric gang rape that was inflicted upon her in the village of Meerwala.
Mukhtar was gang raped on the orders of the Mastoi Baloch clan because her
brother allegedly “committed fornication” with a woman from their clan. Normally,
a woman in her circumstance would commit suicide. Not Mukhtar. She fought back
and reported her perpetrators. In September 2002, the anti-terrorism court
sentenced her four rapists to death. However, the culprits were acquitted due
to “insufficient evidence” by the Lahore High Court. Refusing to stay silent, Mukhtar
Mai started the Mukhtar Mai Women’s
Welfare Organization, recounted her traumatic story in an autobiography,
and was lauded by international magazines such as the New York Times and Glamour
Magazine for her bravery. Although she continues to receive death threats, she
refuses to stay silent.
Another courageous woman
is Kainat Soomro, a 13-year-old girl who was gang raped in 2007 by four men at Mehar, a small town in the Sindh
province of Pakistan. She told the media that she stepped out of her house to
buy a toy for her niece, and was kidnapped by the men who raped her. She
managed to escape after being tortured and assaulted for three terrifying days.
When her family fought back, and reported the heinous crime to the media and the
police, they were harassed and threatened and the alleged rapists killed Soomro’s
brother. The family moved to another town, but they continue to face daily
death threats.
Women such as Mukhtar Mai
and Kainat Soomro are inspiring examples who hopefully shall one day bring
change in Pakistan. They are symbols for other women, and the fact that a few
women have raised their voices to fight for their rights is a huge achievement
for the country.
Moreover, the bravery of these women who will
not be silenced has resulted in Pakistani media suddenly reporting about the
unjust system, making films, documentaries, and shouting out to change the
system. Kainat Soomro’s daring decision
to speak out against her rapists instead of resorting to suicide inspired two female
journalists, Habiba Nosheen and Hilke Schellmann, to produce Outlawed in Pakistan, a short
documentary film that depicts Kainat’s fight against rape. It was selected for
the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Nosheen is a Pakistani-Canadian journalist who
has received several awards for her reporting, including the Gracie award given by the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation
in 2012
Gender inequality is an
ugly reality that exists in all countries not just in Pakistan. However, due to
the warped laws, religious extremism, and the patriarchal mindset that pervades
the country, Pakistani women suffer more injustices than most, and infinitely
more than women from developed countries. However, human rights organizations
and journalists are now taking a stand against the violent crimes that are
committed against women.
Rape is not the only issue
that plagues women. Other problems such as honour killings, prostitution, and
acid attacks on women are frequent occurrences. But the public is taking notice
and speaking out. In 2012, Pakistani-Canadian journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
launched her much-acclaimed documentary, Saving
Face, which highlighted the plight of women who suffer horrific injuries
when they are attacked by having acid thrown on them. Sharmeen Obaid became the
first Pakistani Oscar winner when the film won the 2012 Academy Award for Best
Short Documentary.
These awareness-raising
campaigns, through the production of films, documentaries and newspaper
articles, are positive steps in breaking the silence on violence against women
in Pakistan. One can only hope that the government will take radical steps and
change some of its discriminatory laws and do something about punishing the
felons who commit these heinous crimes. Women of all classes should be made
aware that they have rights and that they are not “objects” to be owned by men.
They also need to be made aware of their inner strength and the support system
of NGOs that is now available. Such resources were not accessible a few years
back.
It is only when women will
start fighting for their own rights that change will come. It shall be slow and
painful but there is great hope because a woman has enormous strength and
resilience. Strong women such as Mukhtaran Mai, Dr. Shazia and Kulsoom Soomro, who
have been victims of rape are inspiring examples. They are women who kept on
fighting and refused to give up even when all hope seemed lost. I hope they
keep fighting, build awareness, and raise their voices in order to change the
very structure of society and allow women to live free lives without fear of
threats, persecution, rape, and harassment. As the American writer C. Joybell
once said, “The strength of a woman is not measured by the impact that all her
hardships in life have had on her; but the strength of a woman is measured by
the extent of her refusal to allow those hardships to dictate her and who she
becomes.”
Let us join hands, and
fight to change the system.
