Editorial

Bigoted mentalities

Incidents involving trading women to settle familial or tribal disputes is a prevalent evil across the country.

Editorial May 16, 2014

Coming from a male-dominated background where female slavery is conceivably acceptable and women are viewed as commodities, it requires a significant amount of courage to go against the norms. PHOTO: FILE

A young woman in Punjab recently escaped the chains of slavery when she ran away from the house of a distant relative, her ‘owner’. She fled to her uncle’s house and then also approached the police. Her valour is to be commended and the uncle who helped her approach the police must also be lauded for encouraging her to come forth and seek justice. Dismayingly, the woman’s own brothers sold her to the distant relative in greed of financial gain.

Coming from a male-dominated background where female slavery is conceivably acceptable and women are viewed as commodities, it requires a significant amount of courage to go against the norms. This incident also highlights where we have failed as a nation to provide and protect basic human rights for women. Incidents involving trading women to settle familial or tribal disputes is a prevalent evil across the country. We have yet to educate a certain, perhaps, major, section of society to eradicate the bigoted mentalities they hold. Let us initiate this now by making an example of the chauvinist who abused the woman at his will, as well as the two brothers responsible for selling their baby sister.

Arresting the responsible men is only the beginning. The buyer has been charged with Section 376, Punishment for Rape, under the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC). However, the authorities must not deal with this grave issue in haste as there are other charges in the Code that the perpetrators should be handed. They must be held accountable as should the brothers, who have been duly booked under Section 109 of the PPC, “Punishment of abetment, if the act abetted [is] committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment”.

The examples of these men must be communicated within all threads of society to prevent this crime in the future and instil fear of law in the public. We urge the authorities to ascertain that these men are subjected to the punishments laid out by the law and to rightly serve the justice that this lady deserves.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2014.

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