Sometimes people ask me why I write. As a child, I lost my brother — he was brutally murdered and I saw him in his injured condition. He lost his battle for life after remaining in a coma for five days and having three neurosurgeries. On the day he passed away, I was sent to school as usual. I remember sitting in class when one of the ‘sisters’ came to get me. I remember our house: full of people and cars. I remember feeling happy. I thought that my brother had gotten well and had been brought home. I remember walking up the steps, into the house and hearing women cry. I remember seeing my mother, my grandmother, my aunts but I could not understand why they were crying. He was home, was he not? Then my mumani (aunt) got up and took me to what had been our room, his and mine. She sat me down on the bed, took my name and said, “You have to be brave.” That was the exact moment when my entire life changed. I remember being numb. I did not know what to do, what to say. I saw them bring him into our bathroom, put him on a wooden platform. I remember going outside and climbing a tree. As I sat among its branches, shielded from view, I felt my heart would burst but I was not supposed to cry because I had to be brave. Bravery is over-rated. To be able to cry is bravery. To be able to express your hurt is bravery. To be able to empathise with others, to share their grief, is bravery. There are no medals that ordinary mortals receive for their perceived bravery. I started writing as a child; poems, stories, feelings — all hidden — because I felt my heart would burst with all it contained. The pain was too much to bear and no one to share it with. So I wrote. I write because, even today, I feel my heart will explode because there seems to be no end to what I feel. Last week, a 10-year-old child was beaten to death. Last week was my brother’s death anniversary and he had been 10 years old when murdered. This particular child was a girl who worked as domestic help in a house in Lahore. She had allegedly been beaten with a pipe. Her hands and feet had been, allegedly, tied with ropes, her body bearing marks of her horrific ordeal. What kind of monsters can do this to a 10-year-old child? Last Sunday, a 16-year-old girl, who also worked as domestic help in Lahore, was found strangled to death, allegedly after being raped. The poor child was found lying on the stairs with a rope around her neck. The employers claimed that she had committed suicide. Every single day there is news of some atrocity. It is not that Pakistan is the only country faced with this issue; violence transcends all boundaries as it goes beyond ethnicity, religion and region, making no distinction between developed or underdeveloped nations. I came across this excerpt by Emilie Autumn in The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls: “I can explain myself: if you want to be safe, walk in the middle of the street. I’m not joking. You’ve been told to look both ways before crossing the street, and the sidewalk is your friend, right? Wrong. I’ve spent years walking sidewalks at night. I’ve looked around me when it was dark, when there were men following me, creeping out of alleyways, attempting to goad me into speaking to them and shouting obscenities at me when I wouldn’t, and I suddenly realised that the only place left to go was the middle of street. But why would I risk it? Because the odds are in my favour. In the States, someone is killed in a car accident on average every 12.5 minutes, while someone is raped on average every 2.5 minutes. Even when factoring in that, one, I am generously including ALL car-related accidents and not just those involving accidents, and two, that the vast majorities of rapes still go unreported…And, thus, this is now the way I live my life: out in the open, in the middle of everything, because the middle of the street is actually the safest place to walk.” Imagine the lengths she is willing to go to for being safe, but how does one guarantee safety? The children who were murdered, possibly also raped, how does one guarantee their safety? In a country where there are no laws for the protection of domestic workers or against violence towards them, how does one protect these invisible children? One could argue that the parents should not send their children, especially girls, into domestic servitude. However, the 10-year-old girl who was murdered was an orphan. Anyone who has ever paid for a bag of flour and basic necessities needed to sustain the sheer ability to just breathe, live without any fanfare or the slightest non-extras, would know that it is no longer possible with just one earning hand. In my own village, children and women are paid a mere Rs 1,000 per month for the domestic work they do in other people’s homes. This is beyond comprehension. What exactly does a blue coloured ‘note’ with the photograph of Quaid-e-Azam buy nowadays, which guarantees two square meals a day for an entire month? The World Health Organisation maintains that, “Each year, more than 1.6 million people worldwide lose their lives to violence. For every person who dies as a result of violence, many more are injured and suffer from a range of physical, sexual, reproductive and mental health problems. Violence places a massive burden on national economies, costing countries billions of US dollars each year in healthcare, law enforcement and lost productivity.” The Punjab police’s website has still not been updated with the crime statistics for 2013. Up to October 2013 it shows that there were 48,821 reported cases of crimes against persons, which include murder, attempted murder, hurt, kidnapping/abduction, kidnapping for ransom, rape, gang rape and ‘others’. In comparison, the figures for the previous year, up to October 2012, show 52,375 reported cases in the same category. If these statistics are to be believed, there is a reported decline in crimes against persons in Punjab but, being the cynic I sometimes can be, my response is just that: cynical. Not registering cases is not a decline in crime. We can organise seminars, celebrate ‘days’, make laws, create awareness, but how exactly does one prevent violence? Is it possible that as human beings we are heading down a chute of filth and frustration where there is no regard for human life or dignity, where the sole concern is self-fulfillment and desires? How is a 10-year-old child’s life worth Rs 30,000, which she allegedly stole? How can there ever be a price on a child’s life, be it yours, mine or someone else’s? Is the only option left to walk in the middle of the street? Life has so many sidewalks and alleyways, there are so many woods and bridges that sometimes there are no streets to walk on. How about homes? Are they not presumed to be the safest of places? I am not brave. My heart is bursting with grief. There is no ‘middle of the street’ in the homes in Lahore. The writer is an advocate of the High Court