THERE can be no disagreeing that the young woman from southern Punjab who died yesterday was monumentally failed twice over by state and society.

First, she was unfortunate enough to live in a country where physical safety is low on the list of the state’s priorities, one of the factors which led to her alleged rape on Jan 5.

This form of assault is so grievous, and the topic so taboo in our conservative society that many victims have not been able to muster up the courage to report the crime to even their families, let alone the police.

But this 18-year-old had the resolve to see a case registered against her alleged attackers. The wheels of justice work in strange ways in Pakistan, though, and on Thursday, the main suspect was granted bail by a local court.

That is when she was failed a second time; even then, however, she was determined to fight back within the confines of the law, and went to the Bet Mir Hazar police station to lodge a protest with the investigation officer for having, in his report, apparently favoured the man she accused of raping her. We can only guess at how the encounter played out, but she subsequently doused herself with petrol and set herself alight on the premises. The burns she sustained led to her death yesterday.

Some might argue that rape is a crime of the shadows against which the state has no power. That is entirely incorrect. Every country where allegations of rape are investigated with determination and prosecuted with force has seen its incidence drop.

Pakistan, however, has never made it a priority to make a strong effort to stamp out this horrific crime and to send out a firm signal that rapists will face the full wrath of the law.

And this is because of societal attitudes that create the misogynistic taboos and perverted notions of ‘honour’ that surround sexual crimes. If, in her death, the young lady tells us the story of the legal and law-enforcement systems’ neglect of the crime of rape, so too do those who were witness to her desperate act but made no apparent attempt to stop her.