[Dawn] A roundtable conference on violence against women held on Thursday noted with grave concern an alarming rise in incidents of rape and the fact that very few victims dared report it to police while ratio of conviction remained significantly low.A reputed lawyer shocked the audience by declaring that demand for new laws to protect women would not deliver as the state, which guaranteed and implemented them, had 'collapsed'.
Though no other speaker agreed to his statement they concurred with the lawyer's narrative, which detailed the host of difficulties a rape victim had to go through normally if she dared to approach the justice system in her quest for justice.
"It is a myth that any new law meant to protect women could deliver as it is expected, for such laws never get implemented as the state, which sets laws in motion, has collapsed," said Faisal Siddiqui, a lawyer, at the conference on 'Opposing violence in Pakistain: improving responses'.
The moot was jointly organised by the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
...9th PM of Pakistain from 1973 to 1977, and 4th President of Pakistain from 1971 to 1973. He was the founder of the Pakistain Peoples Party (PPP). His eldest daughter, Benazir Bhutto, would also serve as hereditary PM. In a coup led by General Zia-ul-Haq, Bhutto was removed from office and was executed in 1979 for authorizing the murder of a political opponent...
Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) and the Women Action Forum (WAF) at the SZABIST campus in Clifton.
He shared his experience with rape victims whose cases he had fought and said the incidence of rape was on an alarming rise. Very few victims dared report it to police while conviction was rare, he said.
"Our criminal justice system brutalises and discourages rape victims and benefits perpetrators only. A rape case could take seven to 10 years to decide and ultimately it ends up with acquittal (of the accused).
"If a victim is bold enough to fight the case to its logical end, she has to do it on her own as the elite civil society leaves her very soon and the media gets other cases to report instead of following up her case," he said.
He said that a rape victim had to endure hardships in all forms and from everyone starting from a policeman to a judge of a lower court. He cited the new disturbing trend in which rape victims were getting killed as well and many of the bodies found were mutilated.
Anis Haroon of WAF disagreed with Mr Siddiqui on the ground that it was abuse of religion that introduced certain anti-women laws, which made the situation worse, and said such laws had to be replaced with better ones with better implementation.
"The state itself has fallen victim to its own atrocious laws. Better and improved laws could help the state too to stand on its feet," she said.
She said that sexual violence against women was on the rise. Without giving figures, she said the number of rape cases and other offences against women this year so far had already exceeded the entire last year's figures.
A recent report of the National Crisis Management Cell said a total of 10,703 rape cases had been reported in the country over the past five years. Most cases (8,806) were reported in Punjab, some 722 cases each in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
and Sindh, 86 in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
, 295 in Islamabad and some 22 rape cases were registered in Gilgit-Baltistan.