Panchayat system

The incident of revenge rape in Multan seems quite ludicrous. Instead of punishing the perpetrator of the rape crime, the panchayat callously and unjustly order the rape of the girl whose brother had committed the crime. This has enraged many segments of society. Owing to our behaviour towards women, Western countries point fingers at our country. It is unfortunate that in our country sometimes women are killed in the name of honour and sometimes under the panchayat and jirga systems men are given a permit to dishonour them.

There is a dire need that all the shareholders rise and abolish illegal and unlawful systems which act arbitrarily and punish only the weak. Concrete measures should be taken to empower women. As far as the Multan revenge rape episode is concerned, the people responsible for such inhumane decisions should be taken to task and dealt with sternly so that no one has the courage to commit such heinous offence in future. It is alarming that the Global Gender Gap Report 2016 ranked Pakistan as 143 out of 144 countries in the Gender Inequality Index. There is no doubt that the Multan revenge rape case corroborates these findings.

Muhammad Fayyaz (Mianwali)