Daily Times

The current picture encapsulating the horrific high rate of rape cases is nothing short of a tragedy. That sex predators are always waiting for the opportunity to exploit new victims is known to all and sundry, but heart-wrenching statistics push the dagger further in. Only last year, a report had put the number at 11 every day. If that was not enough to strike at the national conscience, the Punjab Commission on the Status of Women lamented at the provincial capital for its astonishingly high ratio of gender-based violence. 4,732 is way too big of a number for anyone in authority to hide behind a barrage of vague terms. They may call into question the perpetual decline in moral values or slam the target on social media’s back. But whosoever forced an overwhelming brigade of beasts to let their ferocious beings out in broad daylight (as if that is possible), they still committed the most heinous of crimes. And would our administration finally pluck up the courage to bring all of these predators in line or are we up for another round of whitewashing our dirty linen?

It is high time that rape in Pakistan is treated as an abuse of power, not a sexual deviance because only then the hideous advances of five-year-olds, women lying unconscious in hospitals or dead in their graves might make sense. Also, if flashy clothes and midnight adventures automatically make them tempting items on the menu, what about the teenage boy raped in Sehwan Sharif, that too, after being drugged? Going by that logic, he must have tickled the SHO fancy one way or another.

As has already been seen after the passing of two historic anti-rape ordinances, legislation–no matter how well-intentioned–does little to end the nightmare. Remember Mukhtaran Mai and her endless toing and froing to see her debauchers behind bars. Ergo, women parliamentarians would be better off raising the mass awareness placards instead of crying out for chemical castration. Only a jot or tittle of the aggrieved dare step out to live through the worst moments of their lives again and knock of the hallways of justice. The dismal prosecution rate is not shot in the arm either. Since the faulty prosecution is already written on the wall, why don’t overeager ministers bother talking about the loopholes in the criminal justice system? Our apathy to solve a problem by laying the blame on its victims doesn’t just fail to prevent rapes but makes a mockery of the very societal ideals we clutch so dearly. *