DOMESTIC violence against women is not a new phenomenon as far as interior Sindh or even Pakistan as a whole is concerned. But in the past three months, the acts of barbarism went too far as, according to a survey, it rose to over 500 incidents.

Most of the victims, the report noted, were minors and teenage girls. There were also married, unmarried and aged women. The crimes against them included murder, ‘honour killings’, instigation to suicide, torture, rape and gang-rape, prostitution and molestation. Besides, there were those that were carried out by Jirga verdicts.

If one looks at the living standard of women in the hinterlands of Sindh and the way they are treated, domineered and exploited, their status, one realises, is far below that of civilised life God entitles them to, and our law guarantees under Articles 25 (2), 34,37 and 38.

The liability for most of the onslaughts upon the guiltless weaker sex lies, one way or another, mainly on feudal lords, mostly self-designated, while our impotent authorities keep dancing to their tunes.

Karo-kari, a diabolic ritual prevailing as a remnant of the dark ages, has now hardened into a local legal act, authorising the feudal lords to issue an edict, permitting a perpetrator to slay the poor girl just because she is wanting to tie the knot with the man she is in love with.

Our law-enforcement agencies themselves help these feudal lords to arrange jirgas at an IG’s office in Karachi.

What is even more heartrending is that a raw deal is meted out to the relatives of the victims approaching the police for lodging the preliminary FIR. In this way, most cases of rape, Karo-kari, etc., are hushed up.

Farrukh Aziz Ansari

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2014