Daily Times

The arrest of an employee stationed inside Haripur Darul Aman for allegedly raping a teenager has reared its head as an umpteenth reminder of the dystopian breakdown of our collective morality. If a girl has had to suffer from such a horrendous ordeal (not once, not twice but thrice in the last couple of months) in a place she had sought refuge by trusting her after battling the demons of the outside world, where on God’s green earth could she feel secure? The victim was subjugated to unimaginable horrors of reliving the tragedy again and again through objectionable pictures recorded for the sole purpose of blackmail. While both Pakistan Penal Code (Section 376) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Child Protection Act (Section 53) are adequately armed to make an example of the culprit, this case has blown the disregard for safety protocol wide open.

That a male was allowed access to a building used by courts to house women and children who fear violence or threats to their lives speaks volumes about the management making light of the dangers involved. It was only this year that a shelter for helpless women made rounds on social media over its decrepit condition. However, fending for themselves is still a far better situation than someone approaching a Darul Aman in pursuit of security, only to find the same Damoclean sword hanging above her head. In May, another such sanctuary in Sukkur was decried by the occupants as rife with tales of sexual assaults. A similar tragedy in Muzaffarpur Shelter Home in 2018 had triggered a nationwide debate in our neighbourhood on how such institutions have become a safe haven to satiate the lust of the beasts lurking among us. Had we taken a leaf out of their playbook and forced the management bodies to become vigilant and do the very task they’ve been assigned–ensuring the well-being and welfare of the downtrodden–no criminal could have dared knock about an already battered young girl. Given the frequency of these sob tales catching headlines in a country well on its way to becoming the next rape capital of the world, there appears no utility in sending out a reminder about how ghastly an assault is, punctuated with aftershocks that reverberate in quick succession throughout the victim’s life. The trauma that they go through and the social prejudice determined to make them bear the blame burden cannot be encapsulated in words. We, at Daily Times, can only hope for this victim to get commensurate justice because that is the least her state can offer as reparation. *