Stopping women from coming forward?

On April 19^th, Pakistani singer Meesha Shafi became the first Pakistani celebrity to join the #MeToo movement when she called out Ali Zafar, a Pakistani singer and actor popular across South Asia, for sexually harassing her on multiple occasions. The #MeToo movement has made waves across the globe. The Twitter hashtag has added to a growing discussion around sexual harassment and assault in Pakistan.

Following Shafi’s tweet, several other women from the industry came forward with similar allegations against Zafar. He responded that as a father, son and husband, he would never treat women that way. Zafar then proceeded to file a defamation case against Shafi.

Let’s set the context here a bit. Pakistan, in its 70 young years, has been under multiple military dictatorships that have lasted many decades. One particularly chauvinist dictator imposed a law in 1979 that systemically discriminated against women. The law has never been repealed. It is called the Hudood Ordinance.

It criminalised consensual sex outside of marriage, demanded four male witnesses to the act of penetration if a woman filed a case of rape and reduced the worth of a woman’s testimony to half that of a man’s. Most of this has still not changed.

Everyday violence against women includes setting them on fire, rape, domestic violence, sexual harassment and honour killings. Domestic violence only became a crime in one of four provinces of the country in 2016 — a law that is currently being challenged in the Supreme Court by Islamic groups. Acid attacks on women were criminalised just last week.

That is not all. Pakistan continues to encourage “forgiveness” as a method of settlement outside of court in cases of rape, assault, honour killings — basically all violence perpetuated against women. The hatred for women is deep rooted in the policy and law of the country.

The combination of anti-women laws means that there is no justice for women to be sought in court. If a woman files a case of rape and the man denies it, given that her testimony is only worth half that of the man, she can be charged with adultery instead. If an underage girl, raped by a relative, does manage to take her perpetrator to court, her family can choose to “forgive” the assailant and drop all charges — regardless of what the victim wants.

Meanwhile, civil society organisations estimate that at least four women are raped every day while close to zero reports of rape are filed. So what avenues do Pakistani women have left to come forward?

This brings us back to Shafi and her #MeToo revelation on Twitter. Many Pakistani women, like Shafi, take to the internet to take back the power that has been taken away from them. What follows are brutal rape threats, death threats and more. Even a woman with (relative) privilege like Shafi, deactivated her social media accounts on account of the threats she received. One is left wondering how is it possible to spew so much hatred towards women? The message is clear: stay silent.

Past the victim blaming and shaming, the first accusation hurled at these women who take to social media is this: if you’re not lying, then why didn’t you go to court? Well, because all of the above. That is why. Yes, social media is not perfect. Perfect would be a criminal justice system that did not discriminate based on gender or religion. One that did not penalise women for reporting rape, one that did not blame and shame victims. But here we are, and the system does fail women on all accounts.

So, as long as we are unable to provide women with safe, full and equal access to the judicial system, we cannot sit back and judge what medium they choose to tell their stories. Next time, try this:

1. Wait to talk until the woman is done talking.

2. Say, “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

3. Say, “it is wrong, and it is not your fault.”

Even if you do not want to. Say it. In principle, surely you do condemn sexual harassment and assault. In principle, surely you do believe sexual harassment and assault is the perpetrators’ fault. Fight that urge to play judge. Just say those words next time and see if the conversation does not take a more educative turn. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 19^th, 2018.

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