Between state and citizen, there exists a social contract
Loyalty to the state is owed in exchange for the protection of life, liberty, and property
Government holds out liberty on trust, and we frame constitutions to set the terms of that trust
Repeat violations of these terms render the social contract meaningless
Why, after all, have a state if it cannot ensure justice? Pakistan’s fondness for patriarchy has forced its women to constantly ask themselves this question
Security and autonomy over their body — perhaps the most basic of basic rights — is denied to them
They are raped in front of their children; harassed in the streets; killed in the name of honour; married off to settle tribal vendettas; assaulted at home; forced to change their faith
Pakistan is the world’s third worst country for women according to the Global Gender Gap Report
Human Rights Watch reports that a woman is raped every two hours in Pakistan
So let me ask again: why should women respect the state of Pakistan? I cannot answer that question
Not after a woman is raped in front of her children as she waits for help on the motorway
Cricket is Pakistan’s national obsession; victim blaming comes a close second
The CCPO Lahore thought the victim should have exercised more sense
She should have known the dangers of being a woman in this country; she shouldn’t have travelled alone
This pearl of wisdom from a man who the PTI has moved heaven and earth to appoint should serve as a watershed moment for this country
Abandon hope, those tasked with protecting you blame you
Blaming victims flows from a myopic worldview that Sherry Hamby, a professor of psychology, describes as the “just world hypothesis”
Speaking to The Atlantic, she described it as: “There’s this powerful urge for people to want to think good things happen to good people and where the misperception comes in is that there’s this implied opposite: if something bad has happened to you, you must have done something bad to deserve the bad thing
Victim blaming robs the victim of their dignity
It argues that people deserve to be raped
Nobody deserves to be raped
It doesn’t matter what they are wearing, what time of the day it is, how they live their life
No person deserves to be raped
Rape is never the victim’s fault
If this was genuinely what our leaders believed, the CCPO Lahore would be out of a job
Unfortunately, that isn’t the case
Asad Umar described the CCPO’s words as “unnecessary”
He might as well have been describing putting slices of pineapple on a pizza
Apparently IGs can be replaced for political motivations every other day but denying a rape victim their dignity is where the PTI draws the moral line
The dignity of a person is the only unconditional right in Pakistan’s Constitution
In practice, women seldom get this right
A woman’s dignity is violated every step of the way when gender-based crimes occur
First, when the crime is committed
Then, when they are harassed and humiliated as victims — blamed for their misfortune, treated as social pariahs
For victims of rape, Pakistan continues to employ the unscientific, unconstitutional, and archaic ‘two-finger’ test to determine if they are virgins
The results of these tests are then used to determine the question of consent, resulting in judges writing in publicly available court judgments that a woman is “habituated to sexual intercourse”
The state has allowed monsters to roam among us, preying on women
Monsters bred by patriarchy
To cure this, some people advocate for a return to Zia’s Pakistan where public executions became normalised, violence became a spectacle
Zia’s Pakistan where the solution to cruelty was more cruelty
Public executions cannot kill an idea
The idea of patriarchy
A notion of male superiority that has permeated every facet of life in this country
Our laws are bred by it; our moral norms nurtured by it; our social values moulded by it
Only through the systematic dismantling of patriarchy can this country change and its women feel safe
Neither are public executions constitutional
To answer injustice by perpetuating more injustice is unlikely to prevent any crime
We must tear down the house that patriarchy built
This means breaking the taboos that exist around discussing sexuality and sexual violence at home and at school
Children must be taught that a woman does not carry her family’s honour, that the only person to blame for rape is the rapist
Consent must become a core part of our educational curriculum
It is also necessary for the government to embark on gender sensitisation trainings
The police must learn to stop blaming victims, the judiciary needs to learn to stop shaming women in court judgments, and every man who holds public office must learn to respect women
Finally, it is time to amend every law in our books that perpetuates patriarchy and makes women jump through multiple hoops before they can report a crime
Pakistan’s broken criminal justice system forces people to suffer for years before any modicum of justice is dispensed
It is the certainty of punishment that deters crime
Here, there is no certainty
The law in this country is present only in its absence
If the social contract fails to protect women from men who have become monsters, then women have no obligation of loyalty to the state
The state loses its moral legitimacy
Women then must take it upon themselves to dismantle the structure of patriarchy that has forced them to suffer
Whether or not the state helps them
Published in The Express Tribune, September 15th, 2020
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Date: | 16-Sep-2020 | Reference: | View Original Link |
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