Women in Pakistan: An Endangered Species
their struggle for survival becomes increasingly arduous each day in the face of an ever-expanding epidemic of sexual terrorism
The bed time stories for Pakistani children are not anything like Hans Christian’s Classics. Their parents often narrate to them the stories from the time of partition. In great length, they speak of the parting trains and how the enemy vandalized them. They make sure to add in the horrific rapes that were done by the furious foes that didn’t want their ancestors to liberate from the oppressive hold. Some might consider mentioning assaults and rapes to children in a bed time story a bit too much. But it serves as a lesson on how the children should be grateful for the independence they acquired by their ancestors’ sacrifices.
And most importantly, just like all fairytales this bedtime story had a happy ending, “they lived happily ever after” ……. “we were safe. secure and free in our own land.. Right?
Wrong.
The children have now grown old. They vaguely remember the stories but to them, they seem nothing more than fairytales. But the spirit of independence like a nostalgic memory finds it way back in the hearts of these young adults. A dream you hope to see come true but are slowly losing your faith in.
They were told that some decades ago, several shared that dream of freedom and liberation. They gathered in Iqbal Park Lahore and spoke of liberating from the sub-human state they lived in the sub-continent where they were discriminated against as a minority forced to subjugate, their women assaulted, raped by mobs of men. It’s been years….A girl was assaulted by a mob of 400 men this year while celebrating independence day in Iqbal Park. It seems as if dreams are just that. Dreams. (The mob assault near Minar-i-Pakistan and why ‘Mera Jism, Meri Marzi’ matters more than ever — Pakistan — DAWN.COM)
In the subcontinent, they were scared of an erasure of their identity. They wanted their separate land to protect their rights and liberties. They fled to a land they could call theirs. And in this land, nothing has changed except for the name.
The haunting realization makes them want to flee but there’s nowhere to go so they perpetually fall back into that elusive dream. It’s 14th August. It’s time to put up the flag. It’s time to go out in the streets. But the streets are filled with prowling enemies. These enemies are harder to fight for they are unnamed. And they are everywhere. So, the promised freedom evades them as they continue chasing it.
One incident after another, women fall prey to unhinged men. Until they’re too scared to leave their homes, until they are too scared to speak up, until they become scarce as if they just are not there. This fear of subjugation serves to erase an identity as a whole. The symbolic Independence Day is a shallow remembrance of a dream that never came true. It simply turned into a nightmare.
