Irate activists call for making public spaces safe for women

A  large number of civil society, political and trade union activists took part in a protest in Karachi on Friday to condemn the barbaric incident that taken place at Minar-e-Pakistan on August 14 and all other brutalities that women and girls faced in the country.

A young woman TikToker was assaulted by a massive crowd of over 400 people as she and her friends visited a national monument in Lahore on the country’s Independence Day. As part of the country-wide protest against the barbaric incident, civil society and women’s rights groups had decided to organise a joint protest under the banner of the Joint Action Committee to condemn the incident and pressure the government to arrest the culprits.

The Aurat March, Tehreek-e-Niswan, Aurat Foundation, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Women Action Forum, War Against Rape and Sindh Commission of the Status of Women were prominent among the dozens of the organisations that took part in the protest.

Participants of the protest condemned increasing incidents of torture of women, their killings and harassment, and said that patriarchal violence was an endemic part of society and it happened every day inside homes, workplaces, educational institutes and public spaces.

They said patriarchal violence impacted not just women, but transmen, non-binary folks and children, and that this violence was so pervasive and normalised that it often failed to register as an event, they said.

The protesters also called for making public spaces safer and more accessible to women, an increase in investment in education, health and safety of women. They demanded an end to the culture of victim-blaming, justice for all victims of sexual violence and convictions of sexual offenders.

SCSW

The Sindh Commission on the Status of Women strongly condemned the incident of molestation and harassment at Minar-e-Pakistan on Independence Day.

“The incident reflects on the worrisome mindset of the society that needs to be dealt with under utmost urgency. The pre-existing fear that women and trans-persons feel within the realms of public spaces has increased to an alarming extent,” said Nuzhut Shirin, SCSW chairperson, in a statement.

“The fact that around 400 men got away with leaving a woman traumatised for the rest of her life shows how the cycle of gender-based violence has been enabled by the system of the patriarchal mindset,” she said.

The SCSW also condemned the case of a teenage girl's dead body being dug out and raped in Thatta.“Trans-persons of all ages, from all religions, races, ethnicities, dead or alive, at home, at a public space or even buried after death are unsafe due to the dangerous mindset of the society. There have only been promises of investigation and arrests being made.”

The women’s rights body said: “It highlights how actions and inactions such as the aforementioned protect and reassure harassers, molesters, rapists and murderers that they can get away with their hideous acts without any accountability.”