Daily Times

“O Prophet! Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and guard their chastity. That is purer for them. Surely Allah is All-Aware of what they do”-Al Quran [24:30]

All it takes is just one slip of the tongue, a little brain fog, perhaps, a public address about increased obscenity and the way women dress to provoke a furore on social media. The pointedly disparaging references to the West were all the more shocking given that the Prime Minister claims intimate familiarity with the Occident. Even his former wife, Jemima Goldsmith, appeared taken aback; tweeting that she sincerely hoped that he had been misquoted. Especially since the Imran she knew use to say, ‘Put a veil on the man’s eyes not on the woman’.

But why does it always have to come back to how women dress? If this is truly reflective of reality, then, surely incidents of rape should be highest among communities in, say, the Amazon Rain Forest in South America, the Congo Basin in Africa, the Malaysian jungles and all those places where partial nudity represents an accepted socio-cultural norm. Or else let us look to Sanema village in Venezuela or watch a Zulu queen dance or observe the naked Koma tribe in Nigeria, who rely on just leaves to cover their modesty in this modern era. Or maybe take a cursory glance at the numerous nudist beaches, or hotels or strip bars where pole dancers’ erotic gyrations are intended to be provocative and are typically put on for men’s entertainment. Nonetheless, the latter do not jump the stage to assault or rape these women.

Let us be clear. Obscenity is one thing and rape another. Likewise, consensual sex is one something and forceful assault is something else. Rapists come from across all socio-economic, academic and professional backgrounds. Thus, before issuing damaging sweeping statements, as is our wont, we must first understand how rape is both defined and determined.

An important and often overlooked aspect of rape is how it can, at times, be linked to hate crimes, such as, systematic ethnic cleansing or ‘corrective’ sex when it comes to enacting violence against LGBTQ communities. Or else, during times of war when occupying forces target the women of the subjugated areas

The word ‘rape’ is a derivative of the Latin word rapere, meaning ‘to take away by force’. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, rape is: “unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception.” This definition makes an important distinction. In any incident of rape there is/are perpetrator(s) and victim(s). Therefore, one party is innocent, although possible incitement may be proved in some cases. However, provocation is not a justified excuse for a crime in legal proceedings. Furthermore, all societies regard rape as a crime that must be followed by conviction, if proved.

An important and often overlooked aspect of rape is how it can, at times, be linked to hate crimes, such as, systematic ethnic cleansing or ‘corrective’ sex when it comes to enacting violence against LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) communities. Or else, during times of war when occupying forces target the women of the subjugated areas as a vehicle for revenge, just to satisfy a wounded ego or to settle a tribal enmity. In recent times, the question of marital rape has also garnered a lot of attention.

Looking at the relatively high number of rapes in Sweden (63.50 per 100,000 people), whereby the country ranks number 6 out of 10 countries with high incidents of rape, many will blame the country’s free and open society, where women dress as they please. If purdah (covering) were there, things would be different, many like to argue. However, the above-mentioned statistics represent the number of reported cases. In societies, where women are supposedly covered up and where ‘obscenity’ is discouraged, reporting is also ‘hushed up’. By contrast, liberal societies tend to generally sympathise with and not silence victims while punishing offenders.

A book entitled,‘Estimating the Incidence of Rape and Sexual Assault’ reports: “Rape and Sexual assault are highly injurious victimisations, and accurate information about them is difficult to obtain because they are seriously underreported to law enforcement”. From this perspective, Pakistan will proudly claim to have very few cases compared to many other countries. In South Africa, for example, 132.4 incidents take place per 100,000 people and according to a survey, (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country) one in four men confess to having committed rape. How many men here in Pakistan would ever make such a confession — even in a confidential survey.

According to the Rape Statistics by Country 2021 of World Population Review, here are the ten countries with the highest rape rates per 100,000 people:

1. South Africa (132.40)

2. Botswana (92.90)

3. Lesotho (82.70)

4. Swaziland (77.50)

5. Bermuda (67.30)

6. Sweden (63.50)

7. Suriname (45.20)

8. Costa Rica (36.70)

9. Nicaragua (31.60)

10. Grenada (30.60)

Unless and until victims are encouraged to come forward, the exact magnitude of the crime of rape cannot be accurately determined. As for the solution, self-restraint, perhaps, is the only way to bring down the crime rate. Yet this is dependent on the admission that rape is an outcome of severe mental health issues. For those rapists who claim to enjoy good mental and physical health, one can only say that they have moved up the ladder of simple desire to reach the level of lust, which can also be controlled through self-restraint and respecting the choices of other people.

The writer, lawyer and author, is an Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS)