As if rape was not enough, a new criminal trend is on. Yes, girls are raped and then killed with impunity across the country. This week, a girl, whose body was found hanging in a room in her house in the suburb area of Karachi's Korangi locality, is reported to have been raped and then killed. 

The autopsy report reveals she was tortured and subjected to rape and then murdered and her body hanged from a fan to give the impression that she has committed a suicide.

The 12-year-old girl was alone at her House No. F/110 Usman Town Sector C/50 Korangi at the time of incident. Similarly, a young woman who was ganged raped while on way from interior Sindh to Hyderabad, is said to have committed suicide later on due to trauma. However, investigation reports suggest she may have been killed by the tormentors to avoid legal action. 

As per available reports, on the average as many as eleven girls and women are raped every day in the country with the conviction rate of the rapists is almost nil. An estimated 14,000 women have been raped during the four years across the country, manly Punjab province where Toba Tek Singh locality is on top and has reported several rape cases in a snap of few week. In Toba Tek Singh, not only girls but boys are also molested at will as is evident from the recent case of prayers leader's son. In Karachi too, there is spike in rape cases and one report says that the number of  such incidents has registered a 38 per cent increase since 2020.

During the last seven years, as many as 2,955 cases have been reported in Karachi alone.  The actual number must be high as these are only the reported cases. Overall, Punjab has witnessed a rise in such cases and as per available statistics, there has been 300% rise in sexual harassment cases in Lahore alone in recent months. In June this year, three obscene youths kidnapped and tried to rape a 17-year-old girl in an outskirt's village of Sargodha. The accused also made a video of the girl, which later went viral.  

According to police records, 642 cases of sexual harassment were registered in one and half month, 323 in August last. The unprecedented rise in incidents of grotesque violence against women is due to lack of implementation of laws regarding women's protection.

It is shocking to note that the law on domestic violence against women has been facing hurdles and could not be passed at the earliest, currently it is with the Council of Islamic Ideology to review of its content. 

The justice system in our society is not the one to protect women, rather by lodging cases, they are subjected to a serious kind of victim blaming, due to which women avoid to lodge cases. Instead of punishing the perpetrators of the crime, the victim is made to suffer due to victim's blaming.

Moreover, a debate starts in our society which stigmatizes women who have in any way become victims of rape or harassment, talking about the manner in which they were dressed, how they behaved, where they went, rather than the simple fact that they were made victims of criminal action by persons who chose to use their power to do so. It may be mentioned here that the victim blaming has increased after the two back-to-back statements by former PM Imran Khan on the growing incidents of rape incidents in Pakistan. 

While in his first stamen, Imran was not clear in views, in his second statement, Imran clearly held the victims responsible for the rape incidents.

Yes, in an interview, the former PM Imran Khan, while responding to a question about the growing incidence of rape in Pakistan, referred to the concept of purdah in avoiding temptation and said: "We don't have discos here, we don't have nightclubs, so it is a completely different society, way of life here, so if you raise temptation in society to the point and all these young guys have nowhere to go, it has consequences in the society." He then went on to add: "If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact. 

It will have an impact on the men, unless they're robots." What the former PM  failed to understand it that attire cannot be blamed 

Published in The Daily National Courier, September, 24 2022

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