Last week, a predicament piqued our collective conscience, where the very fabric of a voiceless kitten was molested by a bunch of teenagers.
However, it comes to us as a little surprise in a country, ranked as sixth most dangerous place for women. A country, where it makes no difference if you rape someone in broad daylight or in the darkness of night. A place where a woman when musters all her courage to speak for the injustice, is subjected to immense scrutiny and is asked to bring four witnesses.
A nation where even innocent children are not protected from the shackles of paedophiles. A town in Pakistan, Sharagh, where boys are not protected from men, where they are forced to render their bodies to satisfy the lust of mine workers. A house in Islamabad where three brothers rape their own 14-year-old sister. A Pakistani school where girls are not protected from their own male teachers.
A society, which places a woman’s honour on a weighing scale and measures the length of her bare skin before weighing the amount of a pain she is going through. To further add, now even speechless creatures are not immune from being victimized by this heinous crime.
However, the question is what has actually caused “alpha males” to stoop down to the lowest level of morality? Is this a woman’s dressing which implants a seed of lust in the heart of a man? Or the legal remedies which were made but hardly implemented? Or men themselves are the reason?
One thing is crystal clear from the recent incident of kitten, that women’s clothing is not the “only” reason for flourishing rape culture in Pakistan. Talking from my personal experience, whenever I go outside, I am in proper dress code according to Islam, with hijab on my head, loose clothes, wearing zero makeup and without any attention to attract males.
Does all this exempts me from getting stares from male? Contradictory to your belief, it doesn’t. Even as a six year old girl I was not able to relish the impunity from getting stares, creepy smiles and weird eye gestures. In my belief, every girl has gone through these situations in their lifetime, irrespective of their age and their way of dressing up.
Now, the question is where we have failed as a society? The basic problem with our society is that we all are busy playing “blame game”. Women blame the toxic masculinity and men blame the clothes of women. Moreover, when mothers are educating their daughters to cover themselves properly, they don’t bother to educate their sons to lower their gaze. The only way to establish an ideal society is to admit our own faults and correct them before raising finger on others.
I don’t want to cement my point of view by using quintessential Pakistani feminist slogans like” Mera jism Meri marzi” or “Agar dupatta itna he pasand hae toh ankhon paeh band lo”.
However, what I really want to vocalize is that next time when a girl is lectured by her mother to cover herself, a boy should also be lectured to lower his gaze. Next time when parents are advising their girls “not to get raped” then their boys should also be counselled “not to rape”. Next time a woman’s story is heard before being judged. Next time a rapist should be jailed before wandering for another opportunity to avail. Next time a woman’s wounds are considered deeper than male desires. I just hope that next time no one tries to commit this heinous crime.