An 18-year-old girl is dead because those who had the power to help her just didn’t care. This girl from Muzaffargarh had been gang-raped by five men and, unlike most victims who are taught by society that being raped is somehow their fault and something they should be ashamed about, she had the courage to go to the police and identify the rapists. It didn’t make an iota of a difference. After a cursory investigation the police submitted a report to the local court that allowed them to be released on bail. This despite the fact that the police should have known that the girl did not come from a privileged background and would surely be in danger of being targeted by the accused. Their release was the last straw. The girl died after setting herself on fire outside the police station. Her mother says she was ‘tortured’ and treated with contempt. Just to rub even further salt into gaping wounds, an FIR for suicide has been lodged against her. This was no suicide. The girl was murdered, first by the men who so brutally raped her and then by the authorities that treated her case so casually. Justice for rape victims is hard to find and that is mostly the case because the men who hold the levers of power have no interest in dealing with crimes against women. The ‘suicide’ has illustrated the agony and frustration the victims suffer.
Consider the MNA from this girl’s area. In recent weeks Jamshed Dasti has been in the headlines for his moral crusade against alcohol consumption and partying in the parliamentary lodges. But his past shows how selective that morality is. Mukhtaran Mai, another victim of gang rape in Muzaffargarh, had revealed how Dasti threatened her and her family with dire consequences unless she withdrew her case in the Supreme Court against her rapists. Publically, Dasti castigated Mukhtaran Mai for distorting the image of Islam and being a puppet of NGOs. Keep in mind too that she was gang-raped on the orders of a tribal council. In both the Mukhtaran Mai and the teenage girl cases we see how the weak and powerless are preyed upon and treated not as autonomous human beings but the property of others who can be used and discarded at will. That rape can be committed with such impunity is down to the culture of our country, where you have the Council of Islamic Ideology only grudgingly accepting the use of DNA evidence in rape cases and still saying it is of less value than the testimony of four men. Little wonder then that survivors of rape either live in silence or fight fruitless battles for justice. Justice, and the ability to deliver it, is a basic pillar of a state’s legitimacy. In our country that pillar seems to have crumbled. Building it up again is the only way to avoid incidents as horrific as the one in Muzaffargarh. No citizen, no 18-year-old, should feel they have no choice but to take such drastic measures. Others have felt the same way, setting themselves alight outside governors’ houses, assemblies or press clubs. Is there anyone to hear them? We cannot continue to pretend any longer that we do not hear their cries for help and their screams of pain. Or can we?
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Pakistan: 18-year-old Rape Victim: ''Murdered''
An 18-year-old girl is dead because those who had the power to help her just didn’t care. This girl from Muzaffargarh had been gang-raped by five men and, unlike most victims who are taught by society that being raped is somehow their fault and something they should be ashamed about, she had the courage to go to the police and identify the rapists. It didn’t make an iota of a difference. After a cursory investigation the police submitted a report to the local court that allowed them to be released on bail. This despite the fact that the police should have known that the girl did not come from a privileged background and would surely be in danger of being targeted by the accused. Their release was the last straw. The girl died after setting herself on fire outside the police station. Her mother says she was ‘tortured’ and treated with contempt. Just to rub even further salt into gaping wounds, an FIR for suicide has been lodged against her. This was no suicide. The girl was murdered, first by the men who so brutally raped her and then by the authorities that treated her case so casually. Justice for rape victims is hard to find and that is mostly the case because the men who hold the levers of power have no interest in dealing with crimes against women. The ‘suicide’ has illustrated the agony and frustration the victims suffer.
Consider the MNA from this girl’s area. In recent weeks Jamshed Dasti has been in the headlines for his moral crusade against alcohol consumption and partying in the parliamentary lodges. But his past shows how selective that morality is. Mukhtaran Mai, another victim of gang rape in Muzaffargarh, had revealed how Dasti threatened her and her family with dire consequences unless she withdrew her case in the Supreme Court against her rapists. Publically, Dasti castigated Mukhtaran Mai for distorting the image of Islam and being a puppet of NGOs. Keep in mind too that she was gang-raped on the orders of a tribal council. In both the Mukhtaran Mai and the teenage girl cases we see how the weak and powerless are preyed upon and treated not as autonomous human beings but the property of others who can be used and discarded at will. That rape can be committed with such impunity is down to the culture of our country, where you have the Council of Islamic Ideology only grudgingly accepting the use of DNA evidence in rape cases and still saying it is of less value than the testimony of four men. Little wonder then that survivors of rape either live in silence or fight fruitless battles for justice. Justice, and the ability to deliver it, is a basic pillar of a state’s legitimacy. In our country that pillar seems to have crumbled. Building it up again is the only way to avoid incidents as horrific as the one in Muzaffargarh. No citizen, no 18-year-old, should feel they have no choice but to take such drastic measures. Others have felt the same way, setting themselves alight outside governors’ houses, assemblies or press clubs. Is there anyone to hear them? We cannot continue to pretend any longer that we do not hear their cries for help and their screams of pain. Or can we?
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