We need to provide counselling to victims of incest.
LAHORE: This is with reference to a report in your newspaper of April 5 titled “Sexual assault: 10-year-old girl points finger at father”. People in Pakistan need to understand and accept the fact that incest exists in our society. I have worked to counsel survivors of sexual abuse and have dealt with a number of incest cases, including some girls who became pregnant. Survivors of incest experience trauma that is far greater than that of a rape victim because the incest victim normally lives in the same house as the perpetrator of the heinous crime.
Also, there are some who say that because we are an Islamic republic, such acts cannot take place in our country. That is akin to burying your head in the sand and denying that the problem exists, when it, in fact, is staring us in the face. We need to accept this reality and we need to prosecute all those involved in such crimes to the fullest extent permitted by the law. And, above all, we need to provide counselling to victims of incest.
Sidra Humayun
Published in The Express Tribune, April 8th, 2011.
