A lot has been said and discussed in the five days since the Kasur child abuse scandal came to the fore. It has been labelled as the biggest sexual abuse scandal in the history of the country, with many dubbing it a tragedy greater than the Peshawar school attack. While the gravity of the scandal has been comprehensively highlighted – despite a few ministers’ endeavour to downplay the atrocities – and the responsibility of the Punjab government and law enforcement agencies thoroughly dissected, there still is a lack of deliberation over the uncomfortable questions, wherein one can usually trace the elephant in the room.
Fear, the deadliest arsenal possessed by Kasur’s crime syndicate, which sodomized and filmed children for nearly a decade, is not being targeted. This leaves the dangerous weapon – and its evident menace – open for abuse. It was fear that ensured that hundreds of parents were hushed up, as evidence of their children’s torment was nonchalantly presented by the perpetrators themselves. This self-mutilating fear wasn’t instilled through death threats or imminent violence, but simply through banking on a perverted concept of ‘honour’, which blackmailed the parents into submission.
The idea of ‘losing one’s honour’, on which the entire superstructure of the Kasur scandal rested for nine years, wasn’t conceived by the gang. The concept was given birth millennia ago, as we, the outraged citizens of Pakistan, fan the embers of victim-blaming while simultaneously demanding ‘justice for our children’. And so, while we radiate angst, let us pause for a moment and realise that it’s we, and our warped perception of ‘morality’, that was the greatest accomplice for the Ganda Singhwallah gang.
Sexual intercourse, the most natural and basic of human instincts, is still treated by our society as a cardinal sin, unless the indulgent get written approval by the state to have sex – also known as a marriage certificate...
http://nation.com.pk/columns/13-Aug-2015/readdressing-sex-and-honour
Topic: Readdressing sex and ‘honour’