Unchained melancholies

Last week, a 15 year old girl came to Lahore’s Darul Aman, a state-run women’s shelter, having run away from home where she was suffering sexual abuse at the hands of her uncle. The girl, who asked to remain anonymous, lost her mother as a young child and her father only two years ago.

“Only three months after my father died my uncle started abusing me sexually, and he has been doing it repeatedly since then,” she said, gesturing to herself rather than using any specific words to describe her suggested rape.

When her uncle left town for the annual Urs at Sehwan Sharif last week, the girl ran away to Data Darbar shrine, from where she called another relative for help. This relative, another uncle according to the girl, promised to take care of her and dropped her off at the Darul Aman for a short stay while he arranged to take her out of her abuser’s home. “I’ve been hurt, I don’t recognise my own body,” she said. “I can’t go back there.”

MOST WOMEN RELUCTANT TO REPORT:

There are 77 women staying at the city’s Darul Aman right now, according to Misbah Rasheed, the shelter’s superintendent, and as the summer heat intensifies this number will only grow. “Most of the women here are escaping domestic violence,” Rasheed said. “Reported rape victims are very rare. They’re scared to come forward, or they don’t know where to go.”

Rape is one of the most severely underreported crimes in the country, and a lack of knowledge or awareness is only one contributing factor to this problem.

As Dr Bari Awan, the head of the NGO War Against Rape (WAR) explained, institutional obstacles, a confusing legal process, and societal pressures all contribute to creating a culture in which coming forward about rape is very difficult. “Reported cases are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Awan.

According to WAR’s research, cases like the one described above are not rare, just kept out of the public eye. Incest, in particular, is not reported, often because families do not want to ruin their name.

“It happens at all levels of society, from slums to the posh districts,” said Dr Awan. “But one’s own mother or relatives won’t report it even if you tell them, because they want to protect the family name. And in Pakistan, a girl often has no other support.”

In over 27 years of working to help rape victims in the country, WAR has ascertained that up to 80% of victims are children (under 18), with some being as young as 2 or 3 years old. But even in rape cases that are not incestuous, families often stop their children from reporting rapes. According to a representative of the organisation AGHS Legal Aid Cell, “When a girl tells her family, often they won’t believe her, or they make it a question of honor and tell her to keep quiet about it.”

LEGAL PROCESS DISCOURAGES ACTION:

In over 19 years of working for AGHS and its private shelter, Dastak, the representative on the condition of anonymity said she has met very few rape victims. Aside from those who are stopped by their families, she explained that many women don’t know what their legal rights are.

A family lawyer who also works at AGHS commented that the law on this matter has always been confusing, and in the past, could even be used against a rape victim. Under the Hudood Ordinances, a group of laws installed by Zia-ul-Haq back in 1979, adultery and rape were under the purview of Sharia law. This meant that, among other things, conviction in rape cases required the eyewitness testimony of at least four adult Muslim men, and failure to do so could lead to the woman herself being charged for adultery.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a report published in 2006, such abuse of these laws resulted in the imprisonment of thousands of women. Many of these women were accused by their own husbands or families in retaliation for defying their authority, and ranged from the ages of 11 to over 70.

2006 ACT AIMED TO ADDRESS PROBLEMS:

In 2006, the Women’s Protection Act (WPA) was passed by the National Assembly to address some of these issues and abuses of power. The act brought rape under the Pakistan Penal Code, which is based on civil rather than Islamic law.

Adultery remained under Sharia law, but became no longer punishable by death or flogging. Furthermore, the WPA removed the right of the police to detain people suspected of having sex outside of marriage, requiring a formal court accusation instead. Women’s rights activists and liberal politicians, among others, hailed the act as a positive step, although many believed it did not go far enough. Others commented that legal changes could only do so much – the real test would come with implementation. Today, almost seven years later, the true effects of the bill remain indefinite.

ADULTERY CHARGES DECREASED:

The National Commission on the Status of Women conducted an exclusive review in 2010 to study the overall impact of the act towards the protection of women’s rights. A survey of the First Information Report (FIR) data in Islamabad police stations from 2003-2010 revealed that there had, in fact, been a drop in charges of adultery against women. The act, by making it more difficult to wrongly accuse people for adultery, seems to have helped solve that particular problem.

RAPE REMAINS UNDERREPORTED:

The problem of reporting rape, however, has not improved much since the WPA. Police stations in Islamabad did report a slight increase in rape charges, but a survey of the official cases showed that it is still very rare for a victim to take her case to court.

At the women’s police station in Lahore, only a total of 21 rape-related FIRs were filed from 2006 to the present.

Women’s Po9lice Station chief Inspector Bushra Aziz commented that she has not noticed any substantial difference in rape reports over the years, and suggested the lack of awareness about legal opportunities as the cause. This knowledge gap extends beyond the general public, however. NCSW’s study, in assessing the implementation of the WPA, found that none of the police officers and judges surveyed had received briefings on the new legislation, and generally lacked awareness of the law.

IS THE LAW ENOUGH?

Furthermore, even where legal knowledge is not the problem, the institutions that are meant to help the victims of such crimes often prove ineffectual. For example, if a victim does take her case to court, it takes on average 3-4 years to get a verdict.

“Right now, there are cases that have been pending for six years,” said Dr Awan. In the face of such ineffectiveness, many families will simply choose not to pursue the case.

In the end, many activists including representatives from AGHS, NCSW, and the women’s resource centre Shirkat Gah trace the problem of underreported rape in Pakistan to the society’s patriarchal ideas about gender issues.

“The situation of a woman in Pakistan is very bad. They are treated like chattel,” said Dr Awan. Simply amending written laws won’t affect real change, he suggested, until women and children feel safe reporting the crimes committed against them, and an effective legal process is enforced. “You can change the laws, but what you really need to change are people’s attitudes.”