Barbaric and unacceptable

There are aspects of so-called ‘traditions’ which should be abhorrent in any state that professes to be civilised.

Although there is some uncertainty about whether a 45-year-old widow was raped on the orders of a village panchayat on January 24 in Muzaffargarh district, there is no uncertainty that the panchayat took place and ordered her rape. Whether or not it actually occurred is beside the point. There is, however, no doubt that an otherwise completely innocent women was, on the orders of 40 men, at the very least stripped naked. The name of the convener of the panchayat is known and the rape was ordered as ‘revenge’, because the brother of the woman had allegedly developed ‘illicit relations’ with the 20-year-old married daughter of another man. There is nothing to suggest that the 45-year-old widow was anything other than completely blameless and incidentally, this happened in an area close to where the Mukhtaran Mai case occurred.

The incident occurred on January 24 in the south Punjab area of Mauza Rakh Tibba Sharqi. The police say that they have arrested the head of the panchayat and two of the alleged rapists, but if history is to be any exemplar, the likelihood of a prosecution of any of those involved is vanishingly small. It is a matter of shame and disgrace that such events are reported with depressing frequency. They are defended on ‘cultural’ grounds as being the way things have been done for centuries and will continue to be done irrespective of the law. ‘Culture’ is not immutable, written on tablets of stone. There are aspects of what some call ‘traditions’, which should be abhorrent in any state that professes to be civilised. Yet, for some they are not and there have even been instances when our lawmakers have defended such ‘honour’ crimes in the legislature. That such primitivism survives into the 21^st century is perhaps, no surprise when one views the parlous state of education and development and a general lack of awareness about laws and rights. One hopes that there will be a time when such actions will be universally seen by all in Pakistan as barbaric and unacceptable.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st,  2014.

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