The Criminal Law Amendment Bill, drafted by women activists, was introduced in the house last year by then information minister Sherry Rehman, who won plaudits from both sides of the house. However, as you would expect, no such plaudits were forthcoming from male politicians and Islamists, who railed against it.

“Your wives are as a tilth unto you; so approach your tilth when or how ye will…” - Qur’an, 2:223

It’s All In The Book, of course. But Pakistani women have clearly had enough of sex-pest Pakistani men. Good for them:

Life for a woman in Karachi is becoming increasingly difficult as they are repeatedly accosted by men who think they are call girls.

Countless men stop their cars on the road whenever they see a lone woman standing at a bus stop or walking towards it. Lewd stares, catcalls and crude remarks have become a common phenomenon for women here.

“Once I was standing at Tariq Road when a man, who was wearing a shirt and tie and had an office identity card around his neck, stopped his car right in front of me. When I ignored him and walked towards a spot where a family was standing, he had the guts to turn back and stare at me for a good few minutes before he finally drove away!” quoted Sabina, a 20-year-old woman.

While some prefer to ignore such incidents, there are others would like to teach these men a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry.

A college girl recalled, “I was waiting for a bus in the afternoon once, when a car stopped and the driver continuously asked if I needed a ‘lift’. I moved away, he pulled up his car windows but still followed me. When my patience ran thin, I walked up to him, banged his windows and shouted at him ruthlessly. People gathered, the man was embarrassed and he sheepishly drove away.”

A woman’s attire whether conventional, orthodox or ‘modern’ makes no difference for these men.

Karachi-based sociologist Nabeel Zubairi observed, “This trend of bothering women on the roads is increasing, because their image has become drastically distorted at homes. Women used to have a stable status in the past, but now their perception in the eyes of men has become limited to that of a toy, thanks to our so-called transition towards industrialisation.”

Suggesting a solution, she said, “These mentally sick people can only be disciplined through proper legislation regarding abus issues. There is also a dire need for educating children at schools about their rights.”

Sexual harrassment is widespread throughout the Islamic world. The Qur’an, and ahadith (Islam’s scriptures), hold forth very definite ideas on the status of women and they are most certainly not of the ‘equitable and fair’ variety. This has engendered a culture from Islamabad to Bradford, from Riyadh to Kuala Lumpur, that women are fair game.

Good to see that these Karachi women who are standing up for themselves (and there have been admirable attempts to legislate against sxual harassment in Pakistan, but don’t expect to see material change any time soon.

[Source: The Siasat Daily]

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