The world may seems to have excelled in science, technology & other fields but humans don’t understand why day by day occurrence and re-occurrence of crimes are throwing bigger challenges to both the society and as well as the government. Time & again human society faces urgent need to reform to isolate & eradicate evil forces from society. All hearts in pain, eyes full of tears, everyone feeling they couldn’t do much for Zainab! Recently in neighbouring Pakistan, Zainab who was just 8 years old was raped & murdered brutally, since then country is in a state of shock, with social media flooded with messages of solidarity with Zainab’s family and anger at the provincial govt of Punjab. Zainab disappeared last week while returning from a Qurani study centre to her aunt’s house; her body was found in a pile of garbage on Tuesday near her home in Kasur in Pakistan’s Punjab province. She was the eighth child found raped and murdered in Kasur during the last one year, according to a police official anonymously quoted by news agencies.
In the city of Kasur, people are protesting lack of progress in finding those responsible for the kidnapping, rape and murder of seven-year-old Zainab Ansari. At least two people have died during violent clashes between police and protesters.
In August 2015, Kasur came to the world’s attention via a child abuse and extortion scandal involving at least 280 children who were filmed while being sexually abused by a gang of men. The men then blackmailed the children’s parents by threatening to release the videos. The scandal sparked countrywide condemnation and anger against authorities.
Pakistani rights activists say they had put forward a number of suggestions to the government after the 2015 child abuse scandal in Kasur, but authorities haven’t implemented them. Finding Zainab’s killers must be an important priority for authorities, especially as in this case it seems that this is not a lone incident in this area and other children are at risk,” activist Maria to a local daily. She added that Sadly, after initial media hype and response to rape and child abuse cases by state authorities, people forget about them. There is no long-term redressal of the issue and it is treated more as an anomaly rather than a widespread problem that needs to be tackled at various levels and through sustained effort.
Four women were raped every day in the country throughout 2014, says WAR report(War Against Rape), accounting for the incidents taking place across Pakistan. Last year also witnessed a 49 per cent increase in the reporting of sexual assault cases as compared to 2013. A total of 1,582 cases were reported across the country in 2014 as compared to 772 in 2013. In 2014, 3,508 children were sexually abused while in 2013, the total number was 3,002. Around 67 per cent of these cases were reported from rural areas while the most vulnerable age bracket was of children between 11 to 15 years of age.
On November 21, 2015, in Rawalpindi, 24-year-old Tahmina Kausar, a student of Quaid-i-Azam University’s Department of Defence and Strategic Studies and a Central Superior Services (CSS) aspirant was raped and killed by her Facebook friend Umair Makki. The Facebook friend wanted to marry her but on her refusal, he raped and killed her, throwing her down from the third storey of a building. In Taxila Punjab, a 13-year-old Halima Sadia was raped and made five months pregnant by her relative Ashfaq. Similar tragedies occur in our society recurrently.
In September 2015, Safia Bibi, a deaf and dumb Christian woman, was raped at gunpoint in her house in village Gonda Ganda Singh Wala near Kasur. Her rapist has been granted bail because she could not produce evidence of her rape.
In fact, rapes are so common (and typically unreported), that the perpetrators in Pakistan are rarely ever arrested, much less held over for trial, convicted and jailed.
Perhaps the Rape case of Mukhtar Mai, the illiterate village woman in Punjab Pakistan who endured a brutal sexual assault by up to 14 men in 2002, survived, sought justice through the courts and became a symbol of the country’s complete disregard for the fairer sex.
Almost all of her rapists were ultimately acquitted after a lengthy series of trials that went all the way up to the Pakistani Supreme Court nine years later. (The other defendant was sent away for life.)
In Mai’s case, her rape was ordered by the jirga (a council of elders in another village) after her brother had offended members of a rival clan.
Her ordeal attracted enormous attention from Pakistani politicians and celebrities as well as from foreign countries, but her application to leave the country was denied on accusations that she would “use” her tragedy to become “wealthy” in the West.
Mukhtar Mai remains in her native village, living in fear of reprisals over her extraordinarily courageous stand. Regrettably, a mammoth number of such incidents take place owing to multiple factors and are not reported for various reasons in our society. Even though, the fact is that rape is a serious crime punishable by death, yet frequency of rape incidents is persisting in Pakistan due to dysfunctional mechanism of law enforcement. The judicial system and police infrastructure, due to complicated legal requirements, have not been playing the expected role and have not produced fruitful results to control this vicious crime. As a result, the perpetrators have been damaging innocent lives, tarnishing their social status and ruining their honour in the society without any fear of punishment. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), an incident of rape occurs every two hours and an innocent victim is gang-raped every four to eight days. The reports are serious blot on the Islamic society of Pakistan.
Pakistan even though making changes in the law enforcement forces have a long way to go.
In Pakistan as per Zulfiqar Ali vs. The State, 2012 YLR 847 Federal Shariah Court
judgement if the perpetrator of rape is unmarried, the punishment will be lower, when compared to a rape by a married man. India has no such “ protection ” for rapists based on their marital status. This makes Indian women understand that it is not OK to get raped, period !! and they will register the case. With these kind of rules, Pakistani women are made to believe from an younger age that it is a lesser crime or normal, when raped by a “ needy ” man !!! .
Adultery and rape are very closely defined in Pakistani Islamic law. When Rape is an offence adultery and extramarital sex are also a crimes punishable under Hudood Ordinances. Thus the rape victim will have to prove without any reasonable doubt that she is not an adulterous in court to get a conviction. If she fails to do so she will be imprisoned, in effect for getting raped!!! .Existence of such laws prevented Pakistani women from reporting rapes for decades after independence, Even with amended laws, 21st century Pakistani women is as vulnerable as before and still afraid to file rape cases.
Women have to face discernment and fierceness on a daily basis due to the cultural and religious norms that Pakistani society embraces. In fact, a number of laws have been recognized by a few courts in their judgments as a form of domestic violence. The relevant provisions of law are varied and wide but all contain elements of domestic violence or can be interpreted to include domestic violence, as has been done so internationally. Violence can be criminal and comprises physical assault (hitting, pushing, shoving, etc.), sexual abuse (unsolicited or forced sexual activity), and nuisance. Although emotive, mental and monetary abuse are not criminal behaviors, they are forms of abuse and can lead to criminal violence.
Discerning on this concern is to following the path towards modification and wholeness. We all deserve to feel “like full human beings” in our lives, professional and private. We all deserve to live a happy life. Some intrinsic factors within people, extrinsic factors, the socio-economic-political and cultural system of Pakistan and the influences of surrounding countries acts as determinants of violence against women and provides useful insights towards the understanding of the violence. A milieu of cultural change may be commenced to bring forth improvements in women’s lives.
(The author a pass out of Government Polytechnic College Srinagar is regularly contributing for the Edit Page of “Kashmir Horizon”. The views of the author are exclusively his own)
