In February 2018, Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy wrote about being sexually assaulted during her Hajj pilgrimage in 1982. She did so after reading a Facebook post by a Pakistani woman describing her traumatic experience of sexual harassment during Hajj. Hundreds of Muslim women then shared similar experiences on her wall. Eltahway initiated the hashtag #MosqueMeToo on Twitter as a confessionary space for other Muslim women’s experiences. She observed, “It became obvious that we had all been too ashamed to speak about it — although we’d done nothing to be ashamed of obviously — because of the sanctity of Mecca and Hajj… But it’s that sanctity that predators abuse. They know women will be too ashamed or scared to speak out.” (Slate, February 2018).

A similar impunity regarding sex crimes extends to many sites holy to various religions and cults. The thousands of children abused at totalising institutions – from military barracks and prisons to elite boarding schools and school camps – are just a t tip of the iceberg, but religious institutions afford double-glazed protection as sanctimony offers the authorities an automatic benefit of doubt.

Abuse in madrassas

Last week, an incriminating video emerged showing a prominent cleric and a former Jamiat Ulemai-i-Islam leader, allegedly sexually abusing a student at a Lahore madrassa. The cleric had initiated protests last year alleging blasphemy over the recording of a video for a music album featuring the Wazir Khan mosque.

The victim says that he had tried to report the abuse for years and was repeatedly rebuffed. He says this compelled him to record the abuse in order to be believed. In a counter confessionary video, the cleric claimed that he was drugged and framed. He has been arrested and reportedly confessed to the offence.

Shortly after the incident, some journalists and two Islamic scholars – one in Karachi, the other based in the USA – discussed the case in an online programme. While candid, their discussion reveals the continuation of flawed perceptions about sexual violence and the moral anxieties that obscure sex crimes in Pakistan.

At the outset, the participants and the host all pledged sympathy for the alleged victim but above all, their shared outrage was over the sexual nature of the offence and violation of the religious sanctity of the madrassa. The stated compassion for the victim wavered over the course of discussion. The reasoning followed the familiar disingenuous path common to sex crimes; since the act in the video is not of brute violence, the diaspora Mufti and journalists are convinced that the absence of overt violence was evidence of consensus and complicity. One journalist attempted to challenge this analysis by pointing to power dynamics between teacher and student and the clear role of grooming and dependency in the situation but the entrapment theory kicked in - since the victim was not a minor and he didn’t resist or run away from the madrassa to evade years of abuse, he had to be complicit.

The diaspora Mufti then offered anecdotal evidence of many runaway boys from the madrassa that he was schooled at. No one questioned why these boys felt compelled to escape. Nor did they reason that escape was clearly impossible since, according to the Mufti’s own account, each time they were caught and forcibly returned to the madrassa. Is it simple to run away from a sanctuary where you are taught compliance and that it is shameful to betray? Is it easy to understand first sexual experience or resist someone who is your guardian? A majority of cases of sexual abuse of young people globally involve family/community members or teachers – they are betrayed by their custodians. Shame silences and paralyses. Even though it is not the victim’s shame.

The participants’ interpretation of the “movements” as seen in the video extended reasonable doubt to the teacher by arguing that he was older and that the younger man had more sexual agency. This was classic victim-blaming where suspicion revolves around the potential capacity, appearance or reputation of the victim and not power as authority - moral, social, hierarchical.

Prime Minister Imran Khan’s repeated correlation of the lack of modesty and spread of fahaashi and sexual violence have inspired global condemnation over victim-blaming and the perverse sympathy for the “biological compulsion” to violate those inconveniently dressed or situated.

Misplaced analysis

This stress on the physical only stems from the view that men can easily resist and fight back rape. The presumption is that the abusers are strangers not mentors, comrades, teachers that one trusts and does not want to displease or betray. Until the fact that the abusers are most often acquaintances and authority figures is accepted, blaming abstractions like fahaashi, music, westernisation and the victim will remain convenient excuses to deflect the collective guilt and exonerate responsibility.

The disagreement between the Islamic scholars on the programme was most educational. The Karachi-based mufti offered some of the most candid insider information on offences committed in madrassas. While he agreed that the viral video might show a case of consent, he explained how madrassas wield financial and psychological power over students. He called the enrolled children “psychological slaves” and confessed that he had refused to enroll his own children for fear of abuse.

The Indian-origin diasporic Islamic scholar who has never lived or worked in Pakistan was visibly outraged and insisted that based on his interaction with Pakistani-origin madrassa teachers in the USA, there is no evidence that abuse is widespread. He emphatically denied that the victim could have been suffering for six years. Even though the Karachi cleric is from within a community of madrassas and carries decades of embedded experience, the diaspora cleric insisted that such cases were rare to non-existent and that there was a liberal conspiracy to malign madrassas and Islam.

When a journalist questioned the silence of the Pakistani ulema following the incident, the Karachi cleric explained that this was how impunity was inherent and deliberate. the diaspora cleric, however, insisted that such commentary would undermine the reputations of the institution of madrassas. This attitude is of course not limited to madrassas. Concealment unfortunately means that there is no learning about restorative justice afforded from such incidents.

When elite schools and progressive political parties prefer to settle cases of sexual offences secretively and confidentially, then why is such outrage reserved for just madrassas? Either we accept all call outs at face value or we insist on due process for all equally. The selectivity and reliance on gossip and personal loyalties and defensive apologia is not just unethical – it is the reason that reform movements suffer setbacks.

False solutions

Mona Eltahawy’s tweet prompted hundreds of Muslim women to share stories of being sexually assaulted in religious spaces, and their frustration that modesty is sometimes presented as a “solution.” Pakistan is currently witnessing the proliferation and justifications of piety campaigns that advocate the misleading myth that hijab protects from harassment and the converse - that those who don’t observe modesty incite sexual violence. Prime Minister Imran Khan’s repeated correlation of the lack of modesty and spread of fahaashi with sexual violence has already inspired global condemnation for victim-blaming and for the perverse sympathy for “biological compulsion” to violate those inconveniently dressed or situated.

The recommendations by Eltahway and others to discourage sexual crimes – preaching by the imam of the Grand Mosque, better training for security personnel etc) were not heeded.

The way forward involves listening to victims, acknowledging violence and implementing reforms to make all spaces safer for everyone. Scholars, parents and teachers need to join a movement that insists on a conversation and education on sexual and bodily safety.

The subject of sexual caution and defence needs to be destigmatised because the only ones benefitting from the silence and lack of knowledge are the abusers. For the young and old, information, skills and self-protection is their only defence from sexual abuse – not same-sex environments, not bans on co-education, not conservative dress codes or curbing mobility and freedoms. Not even blaming the West, modernity or the victim.

The writer is the author of Faith and Feminism in   Pakistan; Religious Agency or Secular Autonomy