Last week, five female cricketers from the Multan region were banned from playing any professional cricket for six months and put on probation for one year. This announcement followed a ruling from the two-member inquiry committee set up by the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB).
In this modern culture of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’, it is pointless to ask questions, such as who was on the committee? What kind of investigation was carried out? Were there any previous allegations against the individuals accused by the female cricketers? Instead, it is safe to assume that these ladies, already presumably facing immense pressure from society for participating in a male-dominated profession, decided to address unrelated grievances with their seniors and their cricket club through veritably stigmatising sexual harassment allegations.
It is ludicrous that in Pakistan, a place where even females hanging out with their friends excessively are vilified (much less contact with the opposite gender), these women would so carelessly assign such damning accusations. This suspicious story and its unfortunate consequences are nothing new. There are virtually an incalculable number of women and men sexually harassed and assaulted on a daily basis. Even the law established to address these incidents is incapable of dissuading people from such incessant behaviour.
The Protection Against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, 2010 prohibits any behaviour that can be categorised as “any unwelcome sexual advance, request for sexual favours or other verbal or written communication or physical conduct of a sexual nature or sexually demeaning attitudes, causing interference with work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment, or the attempt to punish the complainant for refusal to comply to such a request or is made a condition for employment.”
If the original claims of the cricketers reflect any of the above definitions, the matter deserves proper investigation by a three-person inquiry committee as prescribed in the legislation. Anything short of this is a violation of established law, and a disservice to society considering the seriousness of the withdrawn allegations.
Assuming the cricketers were coerced or intimidated into recanting their statements and dropping the charges, the punishment they received from the PCB is a virtual continuation of the harassment alleged previously. This is proudly being touted as a carriage of justice.
To be fair, false accusations aired to malign the reputation of any individual or any organisation are disgraceful. However, the conservative climate in which these women live and work begs the question why they would choose to open themselves up to this inevitable backlash, when staying quiet, as so many people do, is far less likely to elicit retaliation, personal or societal.
What is to be learnt from this affair? Well, nothing. This incident is indicative of three things people, especially women, in Pakistan already know. One, sexual harassment and sexual assault do not exist because if they did this country would have practically an epidemic on its hands trying to process claims varying in heinousness. Two, accusing anyone, especially a direct superior of such behaviour is social and career suicide because they will have corrupt connections strong enough to refute any accusations. Three, women and less powerful or important people do not have claimable rights. They have a series of seductive words on paper they can wave around in front of the legal system, but no real outlet to truly voice their concerns.
Let’s be clear. Sexual harassment is a very real crime. It occurs in all professions to all types of people and affects men and women both. Allegations of sexual harassment, or assault for that matter, should be taken seriously and addressed as thoroughly as possible in order to swiftly address any grievances and put to rest any false claims.
To aggressively punish a group of potential victims instead of providing counselling or other modes of dispute resolution, even for potentially false claims, sends a message. Claims of harassment will only be entertained or deemed legitimate if the accused is not powerful or well connected. No man or woman shall dare to even consider accusing a member of the glittering established order of such a crime unless they are prepared to pay a price in return. After these recent events, it is unlikely that any woman in the cricket world will take such a chance. Pakistan’s society and law has likely failed these five women and it will continue to fail all dragging their knuckles, waiting for a sweet reprieve from this den of hypocrisy and corruption.
The writer completed her Juris Doctor at the University of Notre Dame Law School in the US. She is a researcher and writer at a prominent think tank in Lahore and works in the field of international law and human rights