SHAFAQNA PAKISTAN (Shia News Agency)
Pakistan has been bitten by the Zia’s faulty policies that have brought Pakistan to the verge of destruction. Pakistan has not come out of the vicious cycle of crimes commissioned by military dictator, Zia-ul-Haq, against human dignity. One of his infamous ordinances requires rape victim to present four male eye witnesses of the crime; otherwise, she would be booked under the anti-adultery laws.
Hundreds of rape victims were jailed for crimes they never contested to. Since the elimination of Zia-ul-Haq in a plane crash, Pakistani society has long struggled to come out of the webs weaved by Zia and his cronies but so far has failed. Not long ago, a Karachi court released three rapists with honour, though proven guilty by DNA test results and during the identity parade; only because the victim couldn’t produce the eye witnesses of the crime scene. Religious leaders still support such judgments and reject DNA test results. Very reluctantly the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) has recently termed the DNA test result as secondary evidence; primary evidence remains the eye witnesses’ observation.
Doesn’t matter if it’s India or Pakistan, it’s a matter of mindset wherein leading voices in power put blame squarely on the rape victim — why out of the home, why wear this or that, why so late, and so on. A society wherein falsified ‘honour’ of the family reaches to the level that rape of a girl is avenged by gang raping the girls of rapist’s family, shows the extent of satanic influence we have embraced as our values.
Rape will not go away, even with capital punishments; it’s a mindset issue, can’t be changed merely by slogans. Acceptance of gender equality has to start from one’s home — to consider women and girls not a personal property if at home or an object of entertainment if they step out. Where are the governments, writers, poets, intellectuals, educationists, jurists, media icons, religious leaders to spread the message of gender equality? Celebrating ‘International Women’s Day’ in five-star hotels along with snacks and photo sessions will not hide what’s going on in the urban slums, on the side streets, in the rural areas deeply divided by caste and feudal systems.
pakistan.shafaqna.com
