HYDERABAD: Women rights activists speaking at a conference stressed that women should not feel dis-empowered considering the fact that things had changed and system was responding to their demands.

The conference on ‘Rape & sexual assault: myth and reality’ was organised by the Women Action Forum (WAF) at the Sindhi Language Authority (SLA) here on Saturday.

The first session was moderated by Arfana Mallah, who gave an overview of women’s issues in the backdrop of Hudood laws which triggered a debate around ‘rape’. She regretted societal response to rape, saying it was of stereotype.

Today, she said, it seemed cases of rape were increasing or perhaps they were being reported rather frequently in the media. She said although rape had become an offence, the victim’s life got stigmatised. She said that society always doubts woman’s character if she was adult in such case.

Sharing details of a recent rape case, WAF Hyderabad activist Hasreen Musarrat Shah said the victim who came from a nomad family was not treated well and remained traumatised the way her case was handled by the police and then in hospital.

Rights activist Nazish Brohi observed that women respected men more than men did. She said if rapist was not stranger, than it was difficult to report it.

“Class of victim always matters because elites have multiple ways to tackle cases on their own,” she added.

“Holding of jirgas is not being reported frequently so women should not feel disempowered. It is not fight of women rights activists and society has to fight it,” she remarked.

Sara Zaman, a researcher, shared findings on rape cases in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She worked with Rural Support Programme Network. Quoting a report, she said that 4,960 cases were reported between June 2013 and Feb 2015 in that province and of them 6,632 suspects were arrested but 219 cases ended up in conviction.

She noted that Punjab witnessed an increase of 6.8pc in reporting of cases over previous year but conviction was seen in 3pc cases whereas 85pc led to acquittal.

Amar Sindhu discussed an acid-throwing case of Ghotki district in which a policeman (who was accused in the case) defeated the entire government machinery and state-run commission to get a favourable statement from the woman victim. The woman had initially named him as the accused.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2019