Moral policing: What are PTA’s priorities?

Texting is not the problem, the mindset is

Pakistan, of late, can boast of an assortment of rape. We have every kind that’s been known to man, and it’s practically available in all manners of horror. No one is safe here. We can rape little girls and evidently little boys are no different. And while female rape cases have doubled in the last two years, we have no numbers on how many men are being violated. While this fiasco unfolds the very people speaking against rape would rather it be called sexual violence to tone down the effect that the harsh word has.

Sexual violence can stem from a number of reasons. A play for power is one of the primary aspects, but a lack of empathy and focus on sexual education, is an even more important factor. But of course we have trouble talking about sex or educating anyone about anything coitus related. Pakistan’s official government bodies can’t seem to figure out how to handle sex. First the PEMRA banned a condom advert and now the PTA thinks it’s their duty to school people on the moral and decent ways of texting.

This would make a little bit of sense if they were cracking down on minors, but no, the PTA’s true targets are adults, 18 and above, who are interacting with members of the opposite sex in a manner which the PTA finds deplorable. This is while initiatives, such as those of the NGOs, are mass protested against and shut down. If shutting them down isn’t enough, we further drag organisations through court for trying to educate people about sex.

It’s not surprising that Pakistan is a country where you can consummate your relationship with a complete stranger subsequent to a signature that your father or mother decided you would be penning down. However, texting is a grave problem, one which merits intervention at the government level. Only a couple of days after five-year old Sumbul’s case came to light we found out about another seven-year old who was raped in Faisalabad. And then another four-year old boy who was gang raped by a cleric and his friends. Instead of focusing on people’s private texts, why doesn’t the PTA try to grab sexually violent people?

Modern psychology tells us that rape is more about the power than the sex, and a rapist often boasts of his disturbing accomplishments. Why can’t the PTA track their immoral, unethical, inhumane and disastrous communication instead?

On an average basis the number of terrible things that the PTA can actually sift through is overwhelming. Why they instead choose to focus on what goes between two people – who could be married, could be engaged, could be anything that’s none of the PTA’s business – is beyond me. How about finding out where Sumbul’s rapist is? Maybe he’s asked someone for help since his pictures have been plastered all over the city of Lahore. How about looking into the cleric, the patron of morality, and figuring out who he was talking to before he destroyed a little boy. Maybe try and find out if there are men planning on sexually assaulting their wives?

All of that is also related to sex. All of that also points towards the morally corrupt. But our moral policing and our priorities are far too distorted to focus on what’s really wrong with the country and its people right now.

And while we’re at it, what is next? First you track people’s text, next you’ll install cameras in their cars? A lot of people rejoiced when rumours surfaced that Imran Khan would be making the Hijab mandatory in KP. That’s brilliant because Hijabis don’t ever get sexually violated! They’re the safest people on the planet.

Will we be getting rid of co-education next? Should we start a fund for Maya Khan to go run around some more parks and antagonise and judge people? There should also be a movement against employees of the opposite sex coordinating at work. We should shut down all cafes and eateries too. Texting is not the problem, our mindset is. Why is there no word from the PTA on any of the rape cases?

The number of rapes that go unreported is ridiculously high. There are cases of child abuse as well which never make it to a police station. Take that into perspective when you consider the fact that we’re hearing about several incidents of sexual assault and violence almost every day now, and things are only going to get worse from here. What horrible numbers would we stand to face if we found every single instance of such behaviour? And instead of teaching our people something of value, like empathy or being humane, we’re instead teaching them how to say “haw haye” and move on. Sumbul’s case is not unique; it’s just one that we know about. There are countless others, they happen in cities and they happen in villages – they’re everywhere. Our responses to most are to figure out just how the victims went wrong. When we couldn’t figure out how to blame Sumbul because she was just a child, we shifted our focus to her parents who couldn’t take care of her. The blame game continues.

Pakistan is in trouble. We have a whole host of other problems, there’s no water (which for some reason no one seems to care about), our food resources are limited, we’re failing when it comes to investment and energy, and we almost always manage to find our way to the brink of collapse, right before we crawl back a few notches. To expect that all the nation’s problems will be tackled with swiftly is a fool’s idealism. However, when multiple government bodies have the resources to intervene and interfere with what regular people do, at the micro-level, one has to start wondering just why those resources can be directed elsewhere to places they’d actually matter. So I’ll ask again: why can’t the PTA find the real perverts, instead?

The writer is a journalist based in Lahore. She can be emailed at [email protected]. She tweets @luavut