Stop calling them victims

Although it is positive trend that reporters try their best to cover rape crime, use of word ‘victim’ is bothersome.

In the wake of soaring incidents of rape in Pakistan, I feel troubled. Troubled by the thought of a person being raped. But more than that, it is the victimisation of the person after the crime that bothers me. Newspapers, these days, are flooded with reports on rape crime. Although it is a positive trend that our reporters are trying their best to cover rape crime all over the country, the use of the word ‘victim’ is bothersome.

According to the Free Dictionary, a victim is ‘an unfortunate person who suffers from some adverse circumstance’. Considering this definition, a victim is a perpetual sufferer. Even if this definition is deemed inaccurate, the word ‘victim’ surely implies continued suffering and passivity. Of course, rape is a suffering. But is it justified to rob a person of their ability to fight back by constantly reminding them that they are a victim? Perhaps it is this labelling that does not allow the sufferers to move on and they spend the rest of their lives in grief and a lack of self-esteem. The point is the tragedy of rape was a one-time incident while using the word ‘victim’ is a label for the sufferer for a lifetime. Sufferers might want to forget the tragic incident but the label does not let them.

Instead, we can call them ‘survivors’. A survivor is a person ‘who copes well with difficulties in their life despite hardships’. It is a relatively positive term and should be used to replace ‘victim’ everywhere to help the sufferers normalise their disturbed states and become strong.

Rape survivors already undergo a bitter ordeal, especially in a conservative society like that of Pakistan. They blame themselves and think that perhaps they did something to encourage the perpetrator. Loaded or vague language used by the media often suggests that perhaps, it is the survivor who is to be blamed, while in reality, they are never to be blamed. It is our duty as responsible citizens, and more as journalists, to do everything in our capacity to ensure the survivors a safe future. It may sound absurd to some. They might ask ‘What difference does a word make?’ But surely, words make a lot of difference especially when they label someone. We do not want the rape survivors to live up to the label of a ‘victim’. It is high time we realise our responsibility and pledge to eradicate a word as loaded as ‘victim’ from our vocabularies.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2014.