LAHORE: Punjab has the highest rape incidents recorded every year, and only in July 2017, reported cases have reached 150, as per reports by women rights organisation Aurat Foundation. These are only the reported cases.

On Thursday, human rights activists condemned both rape cases that took place in Multan under a family council.

“The fact that the rape took place was bad enough but then a revenge rape that took place under the patronage of the first survivor’s family, shows the kind of mindset that prevails all over the country,” said Mumtaz Mughal, Aurat Foundation’s Punjab director.

“The ‘panchayat’ system is a serious malady that especially affects the small towns and rural areas and despite it being illegal as a para-judicial system, the government seems to ignore the fact that they are making such decisions.”

She said that the cases that the public knew of were only those that were reported. There must be hundreds others which stayed hidden.

“Till there is no implementation mechanism, nothing can happen,” she said. “We should have learn a lesson and make changes when the Mukhtaran Mai incident happened and we were globally embarrassed. But we did nothing to implement our laws.”

According to the local government, the local panchayat has been accommodated in rural areas while in urban areas this is known as ‘masalehaati anjuman’. However, criminal cases do not fall under their purview.

In many cases of not just rape, but violence against women in different forms, the local police are to blame from the filing of the charge sheet and the unwelcoming atmosphere of the police station, down to investigation.

“Investigation methods are not up to date, evidence and courts are often biased, and most of the time, influential people affect investigation of the case,” says Mughal.

“There are definitely more cases being reported in certain places of Punjab, including Muzaffargarh, Lahore and Faisalabad, but there are more happening in other areas of south Punjab,” said Fauzia Viqar, chairperson of the Punjab Commission for Status of Women (PCSW). She called the incidents unacceptable and “barbaric acts”, which could have been avoided with swifter reporting.

“We found out through our PCSW helpline that police does in fact register cases, but it is the investigation, follow-ups and apprehending the criminal that is the basic problem,” she said. “Even now the rapist is at large.” She said that more than often witnesses also did not come forward or they stepped back; another reason was late medico-legal examination of the rape complainants and many families compromised too.

“We also need to see if there was a DNA test done,” she said. “It is, however, highly regrettable that women are still being used to settle scores and this is being patronised by panchayats.”

She said that such instances could only be prevented with a drastic change of mindset encouraged through reporting and stringent investigation of cases. Even if the family compromises, in this particular case, the state is also party, so the state can go ahead with seeing to it that the criminals receive their punishment.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2017