I ponder this question in a cross-cultural perspective. In the United States, rape is about assertion of power, and not so much about sexual gratification. I wonder, if rape is understood in a similar context in Pakistan?

According to a study done by Dr Meryl McKay, "Rapists reported force and violence being used as part of sex, and saw rape as an acceptable way of meeting sexual needs." This statement rings true in the case of Pakistan where sexual interaction between the sexes is not freely allowed. The issue is further compounded with the lack of proper and just laws dealing with rape in Pakistan that leads to a higher incident of rapes that are never reported. A rape victim is further victimized by the Pakistani Justice system for reporting a rape.

In 2001, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimated that at least eight women, five of them minors were raped in the country everyday. Most people consider rape to be a crime against women but men are also victims of rape. Most men do not report rape due to embarrassment or fear of being labeled homosexual or devoid of masculinity. Pakistani society generally tends to view rape specifically as a crime not against men but women.
Rapists can be classified into three categories:

*The Power rapist: one who commits rape to exert and assert his power.
*The Anger rapist: one who rapes to degrade, humiliate and punish women.
*The Sadistic rapist: one who derives sadistic pleasure and sexual gratification from inflicting pain.

All three types of rapists are present in Pakistan but the most prominent type is probably a combination of all of these above mentioned types. Social scientists classify rape as a distortion of human sexuality and an expression of aggression, assertion of power and deep seated hostility. The Social Learning Theory proposes that aggressive sexual behavior is learned, and postulates that rape is a learned behavior that is transmitted and reinforced within cultures. The above stated theory definitely fits our society where rape takes place regularly but is rarely acknowledged. If Pakistani society fails to view rape as a serious social problem then it is guilty of facilitating a whole culture of rapists.

According to Human Rights groups active in Pakistan, the Pakistani Police is generally complacent and often refuse to take reports of alleged rapes and fail to file cases against aggressors for even much common place crimes like domestic violence. Hundreds of women have been put in Pakistani jails because they filed charges of rape and were unable to prove it because of the unjust burden of proof placed on women in accordance with the Hudood Ordinances. Many women are now languishing in prisons along with their children born out of rapes found guilty of crimes such as having illicit sexual relations with their rapists, when unable to prove their rape and found guilty due to pregnancies resulting from rape. Pregnancy out of wedlock is considered proof of illicit sexual relations under the dictums of the Hudood Ordinance.

Reporting rape is considered akin to Zina or “illicit sexual relations”, and victims fear social repercussions such as violence and social alienation. It is shameful and dismal to report that, “According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, every two hours a woman is raped in Pakistan, and every eight hours a woman is subjected to gang rape.” The count is probably much higher because most rapes remain unreported due to a combined penalty of social taboos, discriminatory laws such as Hudood Ordinance and victimization by the police.

In 1979, General Zia-ul-Haq was responsible for promulgating the Hudood Ordinance in his attempt to Islamise Pakistan. These ordinances were supposedly derived from Islamic Shariah Law, but according to Fauzia Wahab of the Human Rights Cell, PPP Karachi, “This is with reference to the news item (Jan 10). 1979 was an important year in the history of Pakistan. The year marks not only the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan but it is remembered as a year when the Pakistani women suffered setback after setback. At first Naheed Siddiqui the erstwhile dancer of the country was banned from performing on the PTV on the pretext that her dancing performance was damaging the morale of our girls and then came the promulgation of the Hudood Ordinance. This was aimed to appease the fundamentalist forces of the country.

Zia-ul-Haq, who had no constituency of his own except the army, was desperately looking for ways and means to pacify the obscurantists. The axe fell on the voiceless women and a law was created to further suppress women. The Ordinance gave extraordinary powers to the police and anybody who wanted to settle some score with a woman. Be it the estranged wife, be it the daughter who wants to marry a man of her own choice or the woman next door. All what he had to do was to go to the police station and file a complaint against a woman for being involved in "immoral activity" without providing any substantial evidence. The police would then arrest the lady. Her confinement would continue as long as one could want. In most cases, they were forgotten and would rot for years behind the bars”, Dawn Pakistan, Feb 3rd 2002.

However, after the introduction of these Ordinances, particularly the Zina and Qazf ordinance, it has been found that crimes against women have increased greatly and these laws have become an instrument to oppress women. According to the Hudood law, a ten year old girl if she has attained puberty, can be treated as an adult and punished. If a woman claims rape and can’t prove it then she is punishable under Zina law for adultery, because the law equates rape to consensual sex. Such applications of the law have made it much easier for men to commit rape, and then walk away unscathed, unafraid of the consequences of their crimes.

Women hesitate to report rape because how and where would they find the non existent and if present four reluctant witnesses to their rape. Under the Hudood Ordinance, a man must confess to rape or four Muslim males of good moral character need to bear witness against the rapist in order to prove the woman’s claim. Women’s testimony and non-Muslim witnesses are considered worthless. "Fifteen-year-old Jehan Mina became pregnant after being raped by her uncle and cousin. Her family filed a complaint of rape but since there were no witnesses, the alleged rapists were acquitted. Yet her pregnancy was proof that "zina" had taken place and she was sentenced to 100 lashes in public. The punishment was later converted to 3 years imprisonment and 10 lashes."--excerpt taken from an Amnesty International News Release on Pakistan, 10 June 1997.

Thirteen year old Priya was abducted by her neighbor and her father found her unconscious with bruises on her body. When he reported the rape to the police as there were no witnesses to the rape, Priya was put in jail on Zina charges and the rapist still roams free after destroying the innocence of a thirteen year old girl. Sobia Rani, another thirteen year old girl, now pregnant was also raped by a so-called “Pir”, and it would probably be next to impossible to bring justice to this young girl. In Pakistan, if a thirty year old man has sex with a twelve year old girl, rather than prosecute that as statutory rape, the authorities will in fact incarcerate the twelve year old. The irony is that if she was raped in a room full of women, none of those women could testify according to the hudood laws.

One cannot help but be horrified at a report of a rape by a single person, let alone a gang rape by many as was seen in the case of eighteen year old Mukhtiar Bibi who sentenced to be gang raped by the village elders for a supposed crime pinned on her brother. Up to eighty percent of the thousands of women incarcerated presently in Pakistani jails are facing charges related to the Hudood Ordinance, and most cases involve women being charged with adultery after they have allegedly been raped.

A most disturbing prevalent perception in Pakistani society is that women are men’s property and bearers of their honor. Women in our society carry the honor of the whole family on their shoulders. Thus when someone wants to dishonor a man, they rape his mother, wife, sister or daughter. If a woman dares to come forward and report her rape, she is raped repeatedly by the society and its draconian laws. There is no safe place for a woman in Pakistan.

I would like to present a quote from Tahir Nadeem, senior editor of an English monthly for women “Women’s Own” in Pakistan; “Everyday women all across Pakistan are sold and bought for sex, raped and murdered for pleasure, hacked and killed for revenge, married off to the Quran, torched for not bringing in enough dower, physically abused for not bearing a male offspring and tortured for not putting food on the table on time. Forget statistics most of which are based on reported cases. Reality is far grimmer. It seems that this country loves to hate its women”.

This comment horrified me because of the grim truth it portrays about our country created by Jinnah wherein Muslim men and women could live freely with justice and peace for all. Muslim clergy has presented a distorted picture of the rights of women in Islam and this has resulted in a society that considers women child bearing machines and sex toys available for men’s whims and pleasure. A corrupt Muslim society has taken root that is plagued with high incidence of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence.

I was amazed to listen to a sermon by a prominent Muslim leader that it is the West which is corrupting women because they demand equal rights from men. He believed that, “ Many among the Muslim women have been misled by this, because of their ignorance about their religion, which sees the woman as the man’s partner and as possessing rights and obligations”. If this hatred against women is being taught in our mosques then we should not be surprised how our men are turning out to be abusers and rapists.

Rape victims in America are told that it is not their fault that they were raped. On the other hand, rape victims in Pakistan are blamed for it. Societal norms dictate that victims silence themselves as revelation of the crime committed against them would bring shame to their families and diminish their honor. Are women being raped because they are sex toys for men or because they are defenseless and powerless. Is our social conscience dead or we just don’t care what happens to our women. Laws such as Hudood Ordinance need to and should be abolished as they are unjust, corrupt, fundamentally flawed, and against basic human rights. If mothers, daughters, sisters and wives of Pakistan are being raped and then punished for reporting it then the collective conscience of Pakistan’s Justice system is surely perverted.

The same society that claims to protect women turns around and so mercilessly rapes these women of their life, dreams and hopes of ever living a normal life. I am inclined to believe that the patriarchal culture of Pakistan is threatened by women and thus it continuously rapes, subjugates and dominates them to annihilate their personalities, rights and very existence as equal members of our society to assert its omnipotence.