Women in Pakistan

Let women be, Control the man

THERE can’t be any ambiguity that there is one, yes only one, perpetrator of violent sex crimes
and adding any caveat to this fact or qualifying it is an obfuscation or, worse still, an apology for
the most heinous of crimes.
It fills me with rage that so many men, and even some women, blame the survivors for their
ordeal, for what else is saying that rape or sex crimes are provoked because of ‘vulgarity’ or
‘lack of modesty’ in society too? ‘Purdah’ has been cited as one shield against such crimes.
The woman who was driving her two children home on the motorway near Lahore and
confronted a nightmare when her car ran out of fuel last year was not ‘parading herself attired
immodestly’ in a public place. She was sitting in her car with the doors locked and windows
up, waiting for assistance.
The window of her car was smashed and she was dragged out of the car before being subjected
to an ordeal one would not wish on anybody. A little later the Lahore police chief, whose force
had failed the citizen, suggested the woman should not have been out on her own.
Men need to be educated and then read the riot act. The enforcement of the law must be
merciless in such cases.
We aspire to create a society modelled on the most ideal city state of the past and our
imagination runs out at just telling women and children to embrace ‘modesty and purdah’ to
protect themselves from violent predators. Wow.
Sadly, the best among the men only know what women go through second hand as we can
never experience what a woman faces in merely trying to exist, to lead her everyday life. It
must then be such torture for women to hear ill-informed men and their unenlightened views on
such violence.
In any case, there is sufficient research to say that in a majority of cases of sexual violence the
perpetrator is a man known to the woman or the child victim. How can vulgarity or immodesty
trigger such crimes and not a depraved man’s mind, his propensity to subjugate the victim?
How have the innumerable minor boys and girls who have been subjected to sexual violence
in religious schools or in neighbourhoods across the country contributed to their own nightmare
by being ‘inappropriately’ attired? It is time to stop chasing the red herring.
Men in society need to be educated and then read the riot act. The enforcement of the law
must be merciless in such cases. And the highest in the land need to measure their words
carefully. Since the debate triggered by the prime minister’s recent remarks, many have tried to
frame this in a left and liberal, centrist and right context. This is absurd.
Women are more than half the country’s population. Without their full participation in
every sphere the dream of economic progress is doomed to failure. They are half the
workforce, equal to men and not unpaid slaves for domestic chores and the subject of man’s
carnal desires. This needs to be understood and reinforced.