Daily Times

How can someone have the audacity to force themselves on someone? Whether it is non-consensual physical touching, unwarranted eye contact, sexual innuendos or extreme forms which include rape and child molestation. All the mentioned guises lead to incivility in our society, and need to be addressed for justice to prevail and injustice to be denied.

Rape is treated as a form of hidden depravity in Pakistan. Sexual assault victims are hushed down and are blamed instead. They are blamed because they are considered accomplices to the perpetrator of the act. They are plastered with misreported allegations, and the blame shifts on them. Rape victims are considered as obsequious, and the whole socially uncongenial atmosphere around them further deteriorates.

“It is a rape victim’s fault as to what happened to them, if they had conducted themselves in a certain way, things would have been exorbitantly different” – is the notion and the thought process of people around us. In my eyes that is an extreme form of unjust, uncivil,and downright derogatory generalisations on the part of the people who think this way. These people should be blamed and chastised for thinking along these lines, and spreading a culture of victim blaming.

Rather than defending the victim — we blame the victim. This holds true when it comes to both the sex offenders as well as the people who find out about the crime

How can anyone have the audaciousness to wish ill upon themselves? It is truly an unfair contention to plaster on someone who is already at the bottom of the food chain after the chain of events that have taken place. Rather than defending the victim, it is the victim who is blamed; this is a commonly found phenomenon in the narratives of sex offenders and the people who find out about the crime.

A large proportion of rape cases are committed by acquaintances. They are usually in a position of authority and are entrusted with looking after the person they sexually assault. As a result, a significant proportion of rape cases go unreported. Underreporting or silence following rape incidents is usually due to the perpetuators higher social standing and the victims or their families fear retaliation or backlash if they seek justice.

Gender does not alter the circumstances leading to a rape. The majority of rapes in Pakistan are committed on male children, by figures in authority. Parents trust male authority, but they are unaware that most unruly sexual assault cases are committed in their care. I will not mention any statistics as I believe they are skewed in favour of the perpetrators. Sexual assaults on minors is harrowing, their stories ring deep with sonority.

An overhaul of society’s collective conscience is needed to promote and protect individual rights and egalitarianism. To deter rapists, several measures need to be taken. An amalgamation of punishments, such as penal methods, or reformatory and recuperative justice measures should be made operative.

The writer is a corporate lawyer and an alumnus of SOAS, University of London. He specialises in corporate governance issues and operates a law practice in Lahore called Sami Shah & Partners with offices in Toronto, Canada and Palos Verdes, California, USA. He can be reached at sami@samishahpartners.com

Published in Daily Times, September 7^th 2017.