Dr Samina Sabir
THERE is a widespread rage in the country due to happening of recent barbaric and heinous incident on Lahore Motorway where a woman has been gang-raped in the presence of her three children at midnight. In this case, we all have seen outrage and protests across the country to imprison and punish the rapists. Regrettably, this is neither first nor the last criminal case. Rather I must say, this is another type of pandemic that we have been facing since long. I am short of words to translate my emotions and thoughts on our male dominated society, where women can be suppressed in either way. However, this disastrous incident once again reflects incompetence of authorities which have failed to tackle the happening of rape cases to curtail its recurrence.
A few years ago, Mukhtaran Mai was victimized by a gang on the order of panchayat, and most recent seven years old Zainab was raped, murdered and her dead body was thrown on trash. Can anyone imagine the height of brutality in our society? In latter case, capital punishment was given to rapist and murderer in 2018 but it could not thwart the trajectory of child abuse and rape cases in Pakistan. In that year, we had seen 11 per cent increase in child rape cases that was terrible and unfortunate too. Moreover workplace harassment, bullying and trolling on social media are frequently reported that need the attention of policy-makers/government. Wretchedly our officials are perfectly succeeding the norms of patriarchal society. A police official emotionally said, why the woman went out late night without her male guardian and why she did not check whether her car had enough fuel or not.
Unfortunately he forgot to mention his failure to provide security to citizens from criminals in his jurisdiction. Such type of emotional, insensitive and furious statement has further stamped the patriarchal pattern of our society. Later on, this senior official has partially apologized for his wrong and insensitive statement but that will not minimize the pain and agony of rape victim. Sometimes, people raise the question on the clothing of victim, but they forget that rapists don’t forgive female in Hijab and Abbayas. I am citing these examples to just pinpoint the weaknesses and loopholes in our police, prosecution and criminal justice system. Moreover, it is a reality that most of the criminal cases are not reported due to societal taboos and legal system problems. Nothing special has really been done to reform the system to stop such type of incidents to happen occasionally. There is a need to bring reforms in education, police and legal system to change stereotype thana culture to stop crimes and restore peace in the society. For instance train them how to do proper investigation and how to prevent crimes & violence. As long as, system protects criminals and offenders, gangsters and muggers will continue to assault with liberty. Women should be included in police at each level to change the structure of police.
Our system protects influential people and therefore provides support to powerful group of people. This power based system should be restructured where everyone can be benefitted irrespective of influential and non-influential groups. Moreover Pakistan has signed a number of international treaties to protect the rights of women. For instance, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Beijing Platform for Action, Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women etc. Despite all these agreements, Pakistan remainsthe lowest in the ranking of gender equality in the world. Women should be included in police at each level to change the structure of police.
There are a lot of discussion and deliberation on the electronic, print and social media about the punishment of rapist. Should rapists be hanged publically or not? There are different answers to these frequently asked questions. Will public hanging or chemical castration of offenders stop happening of violent cases in Pakistan? Off course, the answer is no. Simply the reason is that rapists are mentally sick and retarded persons, and they will try to do whatever they want to do. Public hanging will not stop sexual assaults but this will increase the momentum of stress and violence in the society. Moreover, Parliament of Pakistan has passed the legislation in March 2020 that kidnapers, rapists and murderers can face life time imprisonment or death penalty. These punishments should be given in time to criminals to stop further crimes and violence.
—The writer is Assistant Professor, Institute of Economics, the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Muzaffarabad.
