Daily Times

Deja vu or yet another sign of the moral decay that defines us? After suffering for two weeks, a woman abducted, gang-raped and subjected to acid attack, finally lost the battle for her life in Bahawalpur. Perhaps, there’s nothing surprising about her ordeal or how scanty of an attention it received by the mainstream media. Rapes occur in Pakistan at an estimated rate of one every two hours. More terrifyingly, the rape itself is only the beginning of the horror because of the Damoclean sword hanging over the victims, inching closer and closer, the fear becoming more palpable. Whether to internalise the trauma or dare speak out and risk becoming the ultimate pariah, entire lifetimes in most cases are spent weighing the lesser of the two evils.

Fathers, brothers, husbands, male relatives, someone in the locality or a stranger, the list of potential perpetrators keeps increasing and just as gruesome has become the crime scene. How many more lives need to be shattered before we finally confront this epidemic head-on? Enough is enough! We need to talk about where we went so terribly wrong in our fight against gender-based violence. Shocking statistics tell us that women and girls are disproportionately affected by violence, from domestic abuse to brutal sexual assaults. Seriously, how is it acceptable that in 2024, these horrific acts still happen with alarming frequency?

How can we possibly ignore the enormous weight of outdated societal norms and stereotypes? From childhood, our boys and girls are shackled into harmful and rigid gender roles. Society feeds them the idea that men must be aggressive and dominant while women are expected to be passive and submissive. This toxic dynamic breeds violence and normalizes abusive behaviour!

But it doesn’t stop there. Cultural practices and legal systems are blatantly failing victims of gender-based violence. In many societies, victims are swept under the rug as if their suffering is unworthy of attention. Those who still find the courage to knock on the hallways of justice are unable to seek help because the system is stacked against them. Our shameful conviction numbers and naked displays of patriarchal biases by the investigating officers and even the judiciary are an open secret. So where have we gone so completely awry? It’s glaringly obvious: we need to adopt holistic and intersectional approaches to combatting this menace. A single narrative is insufficient. We need to consider how class and sexuality intertwine with gender, shaping individual experiences of violence.

Governments, institutions, and communities must all be active players in this fight. Everyone must pull their weight; otherwise, we are just spinning our wheels. *