Women play a crucial role in society in variety of ways. No society can run without women. They play their role in media, as employees, as business owners, in healthcare department, in politics etc. They also play their role in nurturing and raising children, taking care of the whole family and the development of the next generations.
But unfortunately even today in this modern world women are not protected as they should be. They are still mistreated. They become victim of domestic abuse, honour killings, acid attacks, forced marriages, sexual harassment and assault etc.
There are many complex factors that contribute to this issue of mistreatment, discrimination and violence against women. Some of the factors include gender stereotypes, persistence of patriarchal attitudes, Sexual objectification (women are viewed as sexual objects rather than individuals with their own thoughts feelings and desires), cultural norms, lack of education etc.
Some of the cases of violence against women that took all the highlight of the media Include Noor Mukaddam’s case, Sara Inaam’s case, Khadija Siqqiqui’s case, cases of tragic and brutal murders of several little girls like Zainab’s murder in particular. Some are portrayed in the form of drama and caught people’s attention as well. Khadija’s story was represented in a drama named “Inkaar”. The drama showed real life struggles of a girl Khadija Siddiqui who was stabbed by her class fellow in broad daylight and she fought for many years to achieve justice.
As when a visual representation is given, more awareness is likely to be raised. These are the few examples that are brought to media, there are many others which are not highlighted because of several reasons for example either the woman belongs to a backward area, because of her customs, traditions, family and most probably lack of education that stops woman to stand for their basic human rights which are not only given by the constitution of Pakistan but also religion Islam.
One of the recent cases of brutal murder is of Sara Inam who was killed by her husband Shah Nawaz Aamir on September 22, 2022. Sara was a Pakistani Canadian who was working in UAE and got married as a third wife of Shahnawaz Aamir, who is a son of renowned journalist Ayaz Amir. Case took over the internet by storm and became the headlines of all the major media. Dr.Bushra who did the postmortem of Sarah Inam’s dead body told that the victim had multiple fractures on her head, forehead, arms, face, back, hands and ears. Upon investigation it was found out that Sara used to send money from UAE to her husband who lives in Islamabad. It is also investigated by police that Shah Nawaz and Sara had a fight on call two or three days before her flight to Pakistan and that it was intentionally a murder because the CCTV cameras of the farmhouse were switched off. The suspect himself accepted that he hit a showpiece on Sarah’s head and when she started making noise, he picked up the dumbbell and hit her several times on the head. Afterwards he hid the body of Sarah in the bathroom tub from where police investigated and found out the body. Traces of blood were also found on the crime scene but there was another witness of this scene who is Shahnawaz’s mother, Samina Shah. She was there and heard them fighting. It is also said that the fight took place because Sarah asked her husband to give her the money back which she used to send him. Shahnawaz Amir was later arrested by police on 23rd September 2022 from the farmhouse in Islamabad Chuk Shahzad where the suspect used to live with his mother.
Another example of brutality against women is the case of a naïve girl Zainab Ansari. This incident took place back in 2018 when 7 year old Pakistani girl was going to take the Quran recitation class in her neighborhood. Her dead body was found within a garbage disposal after 5 days. The reports of her dead body showed that she was brutally raped, tortured and then murdered. The incident happened when the parents of the child were in Saudi Arabia performing umrah and the girl was living with her uncle. Her uncle filed a report of Zainab been missing but no local authority paid so much attention towards this. Ansari’s family found out the CCTV footage themselves in which the face of the murderer and kidnapper, Imran Ali was clearly visible. This man was also helping the family of Zainab in finding Zainab. This was 8th case of minor girls being raped and tortured in the same neighbourhood and all of these murders were done by Imran Ali. He later on accepted that he murdered the other 8+ victims after the DNA report of the suspect matched with victims. All the murders were done by Imran in the span of one year 2017 to 2018.
Besides brutally tortured, raped, abducted, abused, molested, cases of necrophilia are also increasing in Pakistan. The term necrophilia is derived from Greek words philios and nekros. Philios meaning attraction and Nekros meaning to a dead body. The word necrophilia means sexual attraction to a dead body. The bodies of women are not even safe in grave. The first case was reported in Pakistan in 2011 when a grave keeper named Mohammed Rizwan was arrested after he confessed to raping 48 female corpses. Haris Sultan tweeted on Wednesday; “Pakistan has created such a horny, sexually frustrated society that people are now putting pad locks on the graves of their daughters to prevent them from getting raped. When you link the burka with rape, it follows you to grave.”
There are many other examples as well. But unfortunately no one talks about it. No one take stand because we are not given much privilege and this much education that we can fight for our own human rights. But this needs to be stopped. If we are not going to fight for ourselves, then our future daughters, our future generations and our future young naïve girls will suffer.