There’s nothing new about women being followed, harassed, groped, subjected to disturbing visuals, threatened with rape and downright attacked in a country that seems fixated on treating over half of its population as nothing beyond objects of lust. Therefore, Karachi police arresting a man after he wa caught on camera violently grabbing a passerby woman in broad daylight should be appreciated as a much-needed breath of fresh air. Just this month, outrage erupted on social media against extremely graphic footage of a man exposing himself on the road in a bid to subject a van full of female students to unimaginable mental agony. Earlier, another truly blood-curdling video saw a man feel no fear of the public or the nearby CCTV installations before he took off his pants and chased after a woman. The horrors continue. That a woman is so unsafe on the streets in broad daylight is unbelievable. Men have umpteenthly exposed themselves on the road to rubberstamp their power over helpless women but their glaring lack of regard for the writ of the land as they run after women is a new low, even for them. Of course, this general sense of impunity does get a shot in its arms when society chooses to criticise unrelated paraphernalia over the vile acts of the accused. It is disheartening that whenever any assault is reported, the people around us fixate on what the victim was wearing or doing with whom and at what time. By centring the entire discussion about gender-based crimes on the victim, a loud message is sent to the perpetrators: feel free to attack as many women as you may want because, at the end of the day, they’ll be castigated in place of the demons lurking around us. The state and society would have to understand that victims of sexual assault go through a lot of hardships before finally admitting the ordeal to themselves and other people. Since opening themselves up for arrows from all corners is in no way beneficial for them, they should be supported in their fight. *