Women will not be silenced:On Pakistan’s Independence Day, a female TikToker was sexually assaulted and harassed by 300-400 men at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore

On Pakistan’s Independence Day, a female TikToker was sexually assaulted and harassed by 300-400 men at Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore

Representational image.: Shutterstock

Mehmal Sarfraz | TT | 26.08.21: On Pakistan’s Independence Day, a female TikToker went to Minar-e-Pakistan in Lahore to make some videos. What happened there has left her scarred for life. She was sexually assaulted and harassed by 300-400 men for two and a half hours. The videos of the incident are extremely triggering — she is being thrown around like a football, her clothes are being torn and men are touching her inappropriately. One cannot even look at the videos for more than a few seconds; she, on the other hand, had to bear the assault for two and a half hours. She called the police helpline more than once. Help never came. Last month, when I wrote about Noor — a woman who was tortured and brutally murdered — in these pages, I thought I would write something different this time, something political. Instead, here I am, writing about violence against women, again. I feel angry, I feel triggered, I feel unsafe, I feel helpless. While more than a hundred men have been arrested in this case, I also know that had this incident not been recorded on video, had there not been outrage, had there not been discussion in the media about this incident, there would have been zero accountability. No policemen would have been suspended for negligence if she had not made it public that she had called the police helpline. No men would have been arrested had the video not been played and replayed on our television screens Why? Because the State only reacts when something becomes public, when something goes viral. Women in the country are not feeling safe anywhere. When we say we feel unsafe everywhere, even in our graves, we are told by men that these are just sweeping statements, that in general, Pakistani men are very respectful towards women. When men don’t hear us or don’t want to hear us, when they dismiss our lived experiences, when they tell us that women are safe, they are stifling our voices. They are telling us to be quiet and listen to them — the men.

Two more videos surfaced after this incident; these were quite disturbing too. In one of them, a woman in a Chingchi rickshaw with another woman and child was stuck in traffic while men catcalled her and made videos. Suddenly, a man jumped onto the Chingchi and forcibly kissed the woman. Another video shows a woman keeping men at bay with a stick every time they try to come near her to harass her. And yet, we are being told by men that just because a few incidents take place here and there, it does not mean that women are unsafe. I wish that men would stop telling women how to feel, what to say, what to do, what to wear, where to go and so on.

We know that what we are feeling is what most women feel. We know that women are not feeling safe after receiving news of Noor’s beheading, after seeing a woman being groped and assaulted by hundreds of men in a public place, after seeing a woman being forcibly kissed by a man when she was on the road, after reading about a 14-year-old girl’s corpse being dug out from her grave and then raped. How can we feel safe after we hear about such incidents every day? How do we not get triggered or feel angry at how men enjoy so much impunity while victims are questioned each time.

After the Minar-e-Pakistan incident, we saw apologists trying to justify what happened by asking why the female TikToker had invited her fans for a meet-and-greet and arguing that this was bound to happen. No, this should not have happened, period. Men should not behave like maniacs every time they see a woman. These are the same men who get outraged when women take out an Aurat March around the country, they are enraged when women shout, ‘Mera Jism, Meri Marzi’ (My Body, My Choice), because at the end of the day, these men think that women don’t have any rights. When they circulate fake videos endangering the lives of several women, nobody is held accountable. It is the women who have to set the record straight about the videos being morphed and fake. Not the men who circulated them.

And yet, women are not even allowed to say they are feeling unsafe. But we will keep saying it until and unless our society changes, until each man realizes how unsafe we feel — everywhere. We will keep raising our voices and nobody can stop us. We, the women, demand justice for every injustice. We, the women, will not be silent. We, the women, will ask uncomfortable questions. We, the women, will always stand up against each and every case of violence against women and make the culprits answerable.