The improbable, unchangeable and invincible

The need for our society to stand up against the rape culture

Rape is a form of social violence. The vile act means to strip someone naked off their basic rights, to violate their body and to permanently scar their existence. It’s a mix of belief in your own omnipotence, inability to understand boundaries and sheer disrespect for another’s existence.

Women in our culture are still seen as pieces of flesh that can be summoned at will to entice, excite and pleasure. Every day it is a battle against derogatory leers, objectification, wage gap and sexism. Women’s subservience is deemed as the highest moral vice in our society and people superfluously exercise a sense of self-entitlement to teach women the art of ‘appropriateness’. From how women shouldn’t laugh too loudly, be compromising to limit their opinions (to non-existence, preferably).

Rape is not just a crime against a single person. It is crime against our collective freedom, justice and our progress as humans. The violation is so traumatising for the victim that their voice mostly quenches, words often fail, for it is an insurmountable task to convert pain into language and it seems rather easy to bury the truth. But individual healing comes from acceptance and restoration of social order from accountability. Hence, it is vital and essential to the cause to establish the truth.

We live at a time where instead of absolute condemnation of a heinous act like rape, it is used by the landed gentry as a showcase of their power, authority and social influence. More so, the stigma attached to rape makes it almost impossible for the woman to establish her innocence, restore her image and reinstate a respectable position in the society.

The amalgamation of an overly patriarchal, misogynist society and a flawed justice system forces the rape victims to silence and more often than not question whether they themselves were at fault. The brave ones who dare to believe in humanity, who dare to raise a voice against atrocities are repeatedly beaten down by the flawed system and a society which in Judith Herman’s words believes that “the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women’s experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men”.

Rape is a terrible crime. It should be stopped but sadly, it happens. Instead of a human being, people see you as a thing. That is possible and it happens.

Last week, eight men drugged and raped a fifteen-year-old minor and left her wounded in a hotel room unconscious in Lahore. The local court is handling the issue but as per the reports, if she hadn’t had enough, the police and prosecution pressurised the girl so much that she recently attempted to take her own life. The family of the girl revealed that the girl was being forced to withdraw her statement. Unfortunately, cases like these are a norm in Pakistan rather than an exception.

What next?

Instead of going after the offenders, our society allows rape to be projected as a character flaw of the victim and pushes them to the extent that they’d rather die.

How helpless do you have to be to consider killing yourself as an easier option?

How morally bankrupt does a society have to be to let that happen?

The fact that the main accused in the Lahore rape case is Mian Adnan Sanaullah who is the Additional Secretary General of PML-N Youth Wing is both sickening and revolting.

In an ideal situation, presumption of innocence should be upheld and no judgments should be voiced before the court has passed its verdict. But cases like these complicate the situation. When the mighty and rich try to tinker with the process to obfuscate the crime and steer the outcome in their favour, it is a collective social responsibility to act against it. Otherwise, it is not only the complete disrespect of the justice system on the part of the perpetuators but also suggestive that like a spider web our society will allow ensnaring the weak and defenceless while the powerful break free.

Political leadership of the country is responsible for seeking the truth, to work for community service and to steer the nation towards advancement. It is baffling to see someone who is supposed to be an advocate of youth to be involved in a case of violation of a minor. If the crime is proven then it will not only point towards the moral bankruptcy of our political elite but also raises questions about the intellectual acumen of our local populace that accepts to be governed by such people.

However, a bigger political and moral failure at this point in time would be if the civil society fails to advocate for the rights of the young victim and the political leadership doesn’t condemn this act. There are no excuses and there is no forgiveness for such heinous acts. No one has or should have the right to violate someone else’s body. It is a sickness that needs to be treated. It has to be cured. By failing to punish the culprits our society not only normalises sexualised violence but also perpetuates the crime.

My only fear is that while our society absolves itself of all responsibility and waits for divine justice to play out, a young girl along with her dignity is either going to lose all her faith or her life. The murder of both of which will be on our society’s collective conscious.