A silence broken

Sexual harassment is endemic in workplace whether that is a field of cotton or a brightly-lit modern office

The Time magazine cover featuring the ‘Person of the Year’ is one of those minor seasonal stories that lasts mere seconds in the world of 24/7 news, but this year it is different. There is not one person that is featured and it is just five, and they are all women. Behind them and out of shot are millions of other women, perhaps billions, and they have all been victims of sexual harassment. In the home, in the workplace, whilst travelling or any other place that men can touch them inappropriately. The cover is titled ‘The Silence Breakers’ and Time chose this as the theme to represent 2017 because the global movement #MeToo which mushroomed after the exposure of Harvey Weinstein as a long-time serial abuser has been truly liberating and has real power. Women all over the world are coming forward after years of silence in the shadows and talking, often painfully, often in sorrow and sometimes in anger, about their experiences at the hands of often powerful and famous men that had molested them. Men of substance are being brought down everywhere, their reputations in tatters. Many will never work again and have become instant social pariahs — as they should.

The Time cover speaks to every woman and many children both male and female — in Pakistan. Sexual harassment is endemic in the workplace whether that is a field of cotton or a brightly-lit modern office-run by a bank or a multinational. Trains, buses, aircraft — no place is safe for women or free of the potential for being abused. The status of women is so low, their place in society so marginalised, that they are powerless to take issue with their abusers nor are they likely to be listened to if they try to make a complaint. There is little or no redress and fear of exposure in a conservative culture that is one of the most repressive in the world for women gives cover and protection to abusive men. An Urdu version of the #MeToo hashtag is urgently needed because it is time for the women of Pakistan to break the silence.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2017.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.