Vulnerability and violence against women is forever increasing sans any impunity. Murdering or raping a woman be it a new born, adolescent, youth, old or even in grave has become an everyday news. This time it was a rape in F-9 park in Islamabad. The reactions were all too familiar; victim blaming by all, including women and the rapist, that “why were she out at this time?”
We have heard it all from the motorway rape victim to young Noor Mukadam or Sarah Inam being brutally murdered. The spear of victim-blaming keeps poking – “What was she wearing?” “Who was she with?” “Why was she there?” “She asked for it.”
No one stops to ask if any one of us ask to be catcalled while simply walking the street? Did the accomplished career woman Sarah ask for her husband to bludgeon her to death? Did Noor behead herself? Did the housewife Qurat al Ain ask for her husband to murder her in cold blood while her children watched? No, NO and NO! Pakistan has a misogyny problem which is clearly breaching into femicide, and the women of Pakistan are angry…
We are sick and tired of justifying our equal and constitutional right to be at any and all public and private space without the threat of abject violence.
A brother can kill a sister in her home based on his perception of her public conduct and go scot-free.
An 11 year old is used to murder his mother as she seeks divorce from husband. Why? Because she dared to be. She dared to have a choice and a voice for her life. So how could that go unpunished?
How dare she.
Women are being raped in house by siblings to close relatives but they are not even allowed to whimper in case our ‘social values’ are damaged. This is how deep the venom of misogyny runs in the vein of our society. This is validated and promoted everyday by most, even women that internalise it and believe it to be their fault.
Women in our society are struggling to exist and claim their social, economic and political rights while braving online and physical harassment at every step of the way, in private & public space. The heinous crime those men committed against an innocent victim in F9 park is part of the misogynist power dynamic where the decks are stacked against women.
Just as an example in 2022, in Karachi over 500 women and girls were subjected to sexual assault. A total of 21,900 women reported they were raped between 2017 to 2021, with conviction rates abysmal as reported by Zahid Gishkori. This means that around 12 women were raped across the country daily, or one woman every two hours.
We are sick and tired of explaining the violence of rape, the violence of abusive marriages. We are sick and tired of being burdened by bodies defined by the patriarchal gaze.
A father kills his own daughter when a video of her dancing at family wedding is shared via whatsapp. The patriarchal value system devalues not only a woman’s life, who can be killed for merely dancing at a family function. It also devalues parental love, a father’s love for his daughter is not defined by him but by society. The same society that cries hoarse defending men who rape women. We witness this again and again.
We are sick and tried of these same patriarchal narratives devaluing women perpetuated in our TV dramas, on our screens in our living rooms every day.
Most of our dramas have toxic misogynistic plots and dialogue besides derogatory titles like meesni, manhoos, etc. slapping a woman, degrading her, instilling stereotypes through clothes to appearances is all so normal and necessary for ratings. Working women - except maids - are all characterless. Female characters are inherent anti woman with no morals - as sister in law having affair with her sister’s husband has been the plot in numerous plays.
And most of all, while we carry it with courage, we keep on struggling raising our voice in an attempt to awake the conscience of the society and let the state be accountable to us as well.
Post Motorway rape, just like ignominious Delhi rape case in 2012, there were country wide protests by human and women rights activists. Even raising our voices has become a taboo as those of us who do it are threatened for life, of rape and abused online for violating socio-cultural and socio-religio norms by asking for speedy justice, protection and our legal rights. There is lack of social media outrage after such grave acts of violence against women as it is still a women’s fault.
Political leadership are yet to stand tall, to lead by example put to shame the rapist than victim blaming. The processing of rape cases demonstrates the weakest state of the rule of law, as instead of cases being settled in 90 days they prolong for years. For example, it is now the second year and the Noor Mukadam case has yet to be finalized; Mukhtaran Mai’s case saw that after 15 years the rapists walked off scot free; Qandeel Baloch’s murderer is free; and Sarah Inam’s case is still going on.
In spite of all, there is always a small number but consistent number of protestors who come out in support of the victims of VAW in Pakistan. But it is also a fact that these protests are organised by the same women who often face trolling, hate speech, threats of violence and disinformation campaigns for resisting this erasure of women.
These are women who refuse to accept violence against women as banal and without a need for affixing culpability.
In a society where corpses are dug out and raped by men oh-so-conveniently, it is these women who try to poke society’s conscience in the hope to keep it from complete moral depravation.