There’s no escaping the nauseating rape culture in our part of the world. Young, old, single, married, alone, in the company of loved ones, alive, dead, on the road or inside the sanctity of houses, every woman is a victim and sexual terrorism, the norm. Glaring details about an 80-year-old woman allegedly raped in Rahim Yar Khan are enough for the entire society to hang our heads in shame. A country that makes a great spectacle of its pride in family values and respect for the elderly cannot let such a gross violation of fundamental human rights slide. The distasteful episode also answers several queries of the ghairat brigade forever fixated on victim-blaming. Would what the rape victim had been wearing at the time her culprit decided to satiate his inner demons still matter? Women continue to be blamed for being assaulted. The toxic culture has been entrenched deep within where most basic decisions of autonomy have been snatched from their hands. While a complaint has been registered, there’s no telling how long it would take law enforcement agencies to find the culprit. Even if apprehended, just a modest fee to legal counsel appears enough to twist the loopholes in the legal framework and win oneself a ticket to freedom. Shoddy investigation, half-hearted prosecution and biased swing of the gavel have for long allowed aggressor after aggressor to return to their twisted ways. Although the chances of the outrage kettle boiling over remain slim, a few women might decide to stage protests or partake in social media trends. However, not much would change on the ground. Pakistani women would remain just as unsafe and the monsters that choose to devour them, just as shielded. We do not need to reiterate how a woman is raped every two hours or how the conviction stands at a shameful two per cent to ring the alarm bells. Ours is a country that loves to teach women how to not get raped but does not show any sign of punishing its men for “commiting” the crime. *