Violence against women

In her statement marking the International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women, UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka called for a global effort to end physical, sexual and psychological violence. If she could have one wish, she said, it would be for the world to see "a total end to rape." The scourge affects women and girls in all countries across social and economic strata though more so in conservative societies like Pakistan's due to deeply ingrained gender bias that lends acceptability to violence against women, including so-called honour killings, and rape.

As the UN Women official pointed out, "almost universally, most perpetrators of rape go unreported and unpunished." Unfortunately, however, this happens virtually all the time in this country. More often than not, the victims of sexual assault and their families prefer to hush up such outrages for fear of stigmatization; and also to avoid, in the case of reporting, embarrassing questions during police investigations as well as court proceedings. Those brave enough to report have to cope with social and systemic prejudices of which two prominent examples are the cases of Mukhtaran Mai, gang raped on the orders of a village panchayat in Muzaffargarh district of Punjab, and Dr Shazia Khalid who was subjected to sexual assault while she worked in a PPL hospital in Balochistan. The perpetrator in the case of the lady doctor got protection from the highest levels of government, leading to violent clashes between her hosts in Dera Bugti and the security forces. In both instances, the system not only failed to bring the perpetrators to justice, the victims faced constant intimidation from the government for the media attention their cases received. The Dr Shazia's perpetrator was protected by people at the highest levels of government. After she sought asylum abroad, the then president General Pervez Musharraf in an interview with The Washington Post had let out his inner thinking about sexual abuse of women, making the shocking remarks that "you must understand the environment in Pakistan... this has become money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped."

During the recent years, a host of laws have been enacted in this country to prevent different forms of violence against women. But laws alone are not enough to set things right. The UN official suggested that having more women in police force and training them adequately could be a crucial first step in ensuring that survivors begin to trust that their complaint is taken seriously at every stage of what can be a complex process. That surely will help, albeit as a first step. More important is the need to address the underlying factors of violence, which are related to societal norms pertaining to gender roles. Towards that end, school curriculums need to sensitize students about equal rights between the sexes. Greater representation of women in positions of power, vital on its own, can also help change social attitudes towards female kind. Only when people learn to respect women as equal beings will violence against them become more and more unacceptable.