We fail our women

Usually when a woman is sexually assaulted or harassed in Pakistan there is a great deal of victim blaming. Why was she there? What was she wearing? Did she know him or them? Why was she outside at that time? The questions are endless and a fair observer can only come to the conclusion that this cohort will nitpick and find any way for a woman to be blamed for being brutalized and denied her rights. But what will this element say about what happened in the Hafizabad district of Punjab on Thursday. This time around, a woman was travelling at night with her child and husband when the family was stopped by robbers at gunpoint who subsequently took the woman to nearby fields and gangraped her in front of her husband and three-year-old daughter. One supposes the blame may well fall on the husband this time. Why was he travelling with his wife and small child so late at night? Why doing so requires risking such a brutal crime in this country will not be questioned. Those who do raise such questions will be accused of being somehow ‘anti-Pakistan’ or ‘pseudo-liberal’ and a multitude of other incoherent labels.

In the aftermath of this incident, police in Punjab reportedly started arguing over which district police force was responsible for handling the case. Arguing about the crime-scene jurisdiction apparently took precedence over helping the victim and her family. If these reports are indeed true, someone might want to remind the respective police forces that no matter which district something happens in all these districts are in Pakistan and the police have sworn an oath to protect all citizens. This petty bickering over jurisdiction also violates the protocols put in place after the Lahore Motorway gangrape incident in 2020. Incompetent, apathetic authorities and a toxic culture of victim blaming have made Pakistan one of the most dangerous countries for women anywhere in the world. A report by War Against Rape (WAR) claims that around 12 women were assaulted everyday in Punjab alone between 2017-2021. If anything, such reports and official data likely underestimate the true scale of the problem given the problem of underreporting due to the aforementioned trend of victim-blaming and the stigma that tends to surround rape victims.

In the coming days, one is also likely to hear renewed calls for the death penalty for rapists. This is despite the fact that there is no evidence that capital punishment has ever proven to be a deterrent for rape. Ironically, the steps that would most effectively counter problems like rape, such as the empowerment of women and the inculcation of a culture of gender equality, are often opposed by the loudest proponents of the death penalty and public punishments. Nor was the time when the death penalty was in use noticeably safer for the vast majority of Pakistanis. Without serious changes to a culture that routinely blames women for what others do to them, removing the stigmas surrounding rape victims and legal reforms that make it easier for victims to pursue justice, what happened in Hafizabad will remain the norm.