Tag: rape victim

  • Data: One year of rape cases in Pakistan

    Data: One year of rape cases in Pakistan

    Pakistan has been plagued by episodes of rape and abuse over the years that it has now become common to the extent that people have started normalising such acts.

    Back in 2002, Mukhtaran Mai’s gang-rape was one of the most horrifying gang-rape incidents that were reported.

    Another major incident that took place in 2014 was the Layyah gang-rape case, where a 20-year-old girl after being gang-raped, was found hanging from a tree. Such inhumane incidents haven’t stopped even now.

    A horrendous incident occurred on September 9, 2020, when a woman ran out of fuel on a motorway near Lahore. She was in the car with her two children.

    Two men stole her money and the jewellery she had on her. They then raped her in front of her two children in a nearby field and escaped.

    The incident sparked national outrage but what happened next? Before the arrest of the two culprits, questions like “Why was she out on the motorway so late without a brother or husband? Why didn’t she check her gas tank before leaving the house? And if she had to travel, why didn’t she take the more public GT Road route?” were asked because, sadly, in our country ‘getting raped’ is the woman’s fault. Apparently, a woman gets raped because ‘she was driving alone, on the wrong road, at the wrong time, in the wrong place’.

    Later, the motorway rapists were sentenced to death but rape cases continued to rise in Pakistan.

    On October 12, 2020, our team started counting rape cases on a daily basis from 13 different sources, which included these newspapers: Dawn, The News, The Express Tribune, The Nation, Pakistan Today, Daily Times, Nawa-e-Waqt, Daily Jang. And from these websites: ARY News, Geo News Samaa News Dunya News Aaj News.

    It is to be noted that the given stats only include the reported incidents, not the ones that go unreported.

    During the process, we have included reported rape cases of girls, boys, women, men and transgenders. Moreover, we have divided the rape cases province-wise, according to which Punjab till date has the highest number of rape cases, i.e. 936 rape cases and 44 attempted incidents.

    It has been a year since we have started posting our rape template daily to analyse the record of reported rape cases. We have collected the data of the entire year (October 12, 2020 to October 12, 2021) and prepared slides of reported cases of each month provinces-wise.

    Provinces Categorisation:

    Sindh

    Till date, Sindh has recorded a total of 60 reported rape cases in which 10 are attempted incidents. 11.6 per cent of cases were reported in the month of April and August as per the graph.

    Punjab

    Punjab has recorded a total of 936 reported rape cases in which 44 are attempted incidents until now. 13 per cent of cases were reported in August.

    Islamabad

    The capital has recorded a total of 13 reported rape cases which no attempted cases until now. The reported cases are relatively low as compared to other provinces’ data. However, 38.46 per cent of rape cases were reported in June this year.

    Balochistan

    Balochistan has reported a total of 11 reported rape cases. Most of the months show zero reported rape cases, according to the graph.

    KPK

    Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) has reported a total of 20 reported rape cases of which 2 were attempted incidents. The numbers throughout the months are quite the same.

    Deaths (province-wise)

    As per the graph, the death rate was high in the month of January i.e.14.5 per cent.

    Numbers of the recorded cases after the highlighted incidents of 2021

    After the following incidents, we noticed an increase in the reporting of rape cases.

    Mufti Aziz-ur-Rehman: sexual assault case

    On June 17, police registered a criminal complaint against Mufti Aziz after a male student accused him of sexual abuse. In the aftermath of a viral graphic video that showed Mufti engaging in sexual intercourse with the male student, who was the victim, the action was taken against Mufti Aziz. After the incident, we noticed an increase of 10.7 per cent in the reporting of rape cases in the month of June.

    Usman Mirza’s sexual assault on a couple

    Usman Mirza was arrested on July 7. He was seen torturing and assaulting a couple. He was also seen stripping naked a woman in the video. The video sparked outrage across Pakistan. After the petrifying incident, an increase of 9 per cent was observed in the reporting of rape cases in the month of July.

    Noor Mukadam’s murder case

    On July 20, Noor Mukadam, daughter of former Pakistani diplomat Shaukat Mukadam, was raped, beheaded and murdered, in a posh neighbourhood of Islamabad in July. Noor’s murder led to nationwide protests. After her murder, as per the reported cases we have monitored, there was an increase of 12.6 per cent in the month of August.

    There are many more cases that are still unreported due to various reasons.

    According to The News, official statistics obtained from the Police, Law, and Justice Commission of Pakistan, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Women’s Foundation, and provincial welfare agencies in 2020 revealed that there are at least 11 rape cases reported in Pakistan every day with over 22,000 rape cases reported to the police across the country in the last six years.

  • ‘Rape isn’t caused by this’: Osman Khalid Butt schools PM Imran Khan

    Prime Minister Imran Khan associated a woman’s attire with potential rape case in his recent interview. The statement has created a furor on the internet with netizens being divided on their stance to the PM’s controversial remarks.

    The Diyar-e-dil actor, Osman Khalid Butt took to twitter to express his views on the statement.

  • PM Khan stop victim-blaming, says Pakistani Twitterati

    PM Khan stop victim-blaming, says Pakistani Twitterati

    Prime minister Imran Khan (IK) in a recent interview with “Axios on HBO” with Jonathan Swan (JS), talked about his views on “rape” and “temptation”.

    The primer’s words have hurt the sentiments of many in the country.

    Here is a transcript of the part of his interview that concerns rape and his views on “If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on men, unless they are robots.”

    JS: You were asked about the epidemic of sexual violence and rape in Pakistan and you acknowledged the seriousness of the problem and you spoke about Pakistan’s strict laws. You were also quoted as saying that the practice of women wearing veils “is to stop temptation not every man has willpower”. You said on increasing vulgarity, will have consequences, and you were accused of rape victim-blaming. How do you respond to that?

    IK: It is such nonsense. I never said veils, this was never said. I said the concept of purdah and the concept of purdah is to avoid temptation in society. We don’t have discos here, we don’t have nightclubs, so it is a completely different society, way of life here, so if you raise temptation in society to the point and all these young guys have nowhere to go, it has consequences in the society.

    JS: Do you think what women wear has any effect? That this is part of that temptation?

    IK: If a woman is wearing very few clothes, it will have an impact on the men unless they’re robots. I mean it’s common sense.

    JS: But will it really provoke acts of sexual violence?

    IK: It depends on which society you live in. If in a society where people haven’t seen that sort of thing, it will have an impact on them. If you grow up in a society like you, maybe it won’t on you. This cultural imperialism, whatever is in our culture, must be acceptable to everyone else, it’s not.

    JS: Forgive me, when you were a cricket star, you were seen as a playboy, there were photos of you with your shirts off in your bedroom.

    IK: This is not about me.

    JS: You’re the messenger.

    IK: It’s about my society. My priority is how my society behaves, what reactions are caused in my society. So when I see sex crimes going through the roof, we sit down and discuss how are we going to tackle this. It is having an impact on my society.

    However, the premier’s comments caused an uproar on social media, prompting Pakistanis to call him out for his insensitive remarks.

    This isn’t the first time PM Imran was heard expressing his views on rape.

    Journalist Shahmir Sanni didn’t see the PM’s justification as legit. “Nearly every woman that has been raped in Pakistan has worn what he would prescribe as modest clothing,” he wrote.

    https://twitter.com/shahmiruk/status/1406901725634600962

    Mosharraf Zaidi spelled it out for everyone.

    So, what is the country saying about the PM? That perhaps he doesn’t understand what cultural imperialism is.

    https://twitter.com/Shehzad89/status/1406904010422980610

    Or he [PM Khan] doesn’t realise that out of control men are the problem.

    He’s [Imran Khan] a rape apologist who hates women.

    Disappointed and frankly sickening to see PM Khan repeat his victim blaming regarding reasons for sexual violence in Pakistan.

    People say we’re paying the price for his own guilt.

    Why aren’t men offended?

    The loud and persistent outcry from many people came out on Twitter yet again. Some shared their own personal experiences to make it more clear that why rape happens and why it is never okay to blame the victim.

    As #RapeApologistSelectedPM trends on Twitter, the question remains, “Is our Prime Minister listening to the public’s grief? When will he stop with the victim-blaming and giving rapists a free pass? When?”