around the world that victims themselves, or their families, rarely lie about rape or other forms of sexual abuse. As local organisations, such as Sahil which documents the hundreds of cases of rape and sodomy that occur each year show this is particularly true in our society where reporting assault brings stigma and ‘shame’. A mother then talking about watching video footage of her teenage son being repeatedly sodomised does not then fit the pattern.
This tale of abuse is not an isolated occurrence. Although the child abuse scandal is the biggest ever unearthed in our country, there are accounts of other abuses of a similar nature taking place, possibly on a smaller scale in other places. Young girls have been raped and then blackmailed by the perpetrators to give money or else have the video placed on social media. In some cases, it has indeed been posted.
In one recently reported case, a widowed father discovered his young daughter had been raped only after a close relative reported seeing the video on Facebook. The girl had been too ashamed to speak to her father about the incident.
Other than this too, there are events involving abuse or violations of law which take place all over the country. We have only limited information about them and the manner in which people are affected. But we do know that our justice system does not make room for people to step forward and seek the legal action that should go into motion after such complaints. The feudal nature of our society often prevents this.
In Sindh and southern Punjab, feudal fiefdoms continue to exist where influential landlords keep humans as bonded slaves and run their kingdoms as overlords, denying even the most basic rights to those who stand ‘below’ them in social status.
Action has recently been taken by the higher judiciary to set in place a timeframe within which judgements must be delivered by courts at various levels, including those at the very bottom of the ladder, and thus improve their efficiency. It is yet to be seen whether this will happen. But the issue goes beyond that of good working.
The fact is that people are too mistrustful of police and local administrations to approach them when their rights are violated in any fashion. An element of fear is involved, with the police widely perceived as being corrupt, biased and likely to side with the powerful.
There have been many incidents in which those who complain have themselves been harshly punished. In such circumstances, ordinary people feel too disempowered to move officialdom when things go wrong. This in fact is one of the reasons ‘jirgas’, which of course often give highly unfair verdicts and are biased because of the manner in which they are set up, have reappeared on the scene in places well beyond the tribal areas. The justice they deliver may be quick; it is hardly ever fair.
The growth of vigilante action, with mobs sometimes taking matters into their own hands, is one consequence of this. We have in recent years all read the horrendous tales of persons suspected of crime being lynched, beaten to death or burnt by mobs which decide to seize justice without allowing the accused any kind of hearing.
The lack of belief they will receive anything resembling a proper handling of their complaints from the authorities acts to motivate such behaviour – as do other factors such as the growth of violence and the breakdown of social order in our land.
The precise nature of what happened in Kasur clearly needs to be investigated. There are many reasons why we attempt cover-ups. For some peculiar reason, we appear to believe that revealing what really goes on in our country will bring us ‘dishonour’ in the comity of nations and that therefore these facts should be kept hidden. This perception led to attempts to deny that the mass murders committed by serial killer Javed Iqbal in the late 1990s never happened. It has also led to efforts to hide evidence which suggests other crimes occurred.
This is strange logic, and it has been warped even further by the fact that we now seem completely indifferent to any atrocity that takes place anywhere in our nation. It was thought the events at the Army Public School in Peshawar last year would change our country. We have simply forgotten about it.
Of course, it is even easier to forget when the victims are helpless, powerless and basically voiceless. This was the case with Iqbal’s victims who consisted of nearly 100 street children whose bodies were then apparently doused in barrels of acid and turned into an unidentifiable sludge. Those children had no voice.
In many cases, it was not even known that they were missing. They had left home many years before their death in the majority of cases. The same applies in the case of Kasur.
Against powerful men with money and ministers, the villagers whose children suffered abuse too horrendous to even describe really have limited means to act. It is essential that they be assisted simply by attempting to discover the truth.
The best hope of this lies with the media, which seems to have become less and less adept at good investigation, and possibly the higher courts. If these bodies do not act, we may never know quite what happened or who was behind it.
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