Women in Pakistan

I am shocked! I was watching the news a couple hours ago and saw something disturbing. In Pakistan, in only one month in the same district, 29 women were raped "legally" or "with the consent of the population" to "avenge the honor" for something bad someone in their family did to another person. Is it how it is over there? Shouldn't the person who did bad be judged and punish for what he or she did? In one of the cases presented, a 12 year old boy was accused of having had sexual relations with a woman of a higher cast than his. One of his sisters had to be raped to avenge the honor of the family of the higher cast and so they picked the older sister to be raped. One of the women raped committed suicide. How sad that customs so barbaric still go on in some countries!

[Rikbe]

This is only the top of the iceberg.

Lapidation of unfaithful wifes, genital mutilation of little girls, no education, job, freedom, and so on.
Some Muslims claim Islam teaches equality for men and women, others justify discrimination with quotes of the Koran.
Fact is that the average age difference men - women is different in Muslim countries compared to other. In most countries women live much longer than men (>10 year), in Islamic countries and India there is not much difference. In Afghanistan of the Taliban, it is even less.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/...k/geos/af.html

http://members.tripod.com/~Wolvesdreams/FGM.html

[Rikbe]

FAITH UNDER FIRE
Rape of Christian teen ignored
Pakistani girl reportedly assaulted by influential Muslim landlord

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Posted: July 7, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=28193

© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

The rape of a 16-year-old girl in Pakistan has been ignored by police because she is a Christian, according to Assist News Service and Christian Solidarity Worldwide.

Shakeela Siddique, a Christian from Fatewala village in the northeastern Gujranwala district, was reportedly raped by an influential local Muslim landlord in February.

According to the report, Siddique was traumatized and kept quiet about the attack. She later discovered she was pregnant and had an illegal abortion to avoid the social stigma. Subsequently, reports ANS, Siddique suffered from severe depression.

When the girl's father attempted to confront the alleged rapist, he reportedly was beaten. He told Christian Liberation Front, a Pakistani human rights group: "My everything has been ruined as my daughter is now a living corpse. No Christian in our village dares to raise his voice against the Muslim landlords."

There are about 150 Muslim families and 50 Christian families living in Fatewala, says the ANS report, and most of the Christians are poor peasants employed by Muslims.

In February 2001, Naira Nadia, a 14-year-old Christian girl, was kidnapped and gang raped by a group of Muslim men, apparently as a reprisal for sharing her faith with her school friends. According to the report, Nadia was forced to convert to Islam, and her parents were sent a certificate of conversion. She has been missing for nearly 17 months.

In Pakistan, women who have been raped are at risk of being accused of committing adultery, the penalty for which is death by stoning. According to the ANS report, to successfully defend a charge of adultery, the burden falls on the victim to prove rape, requiring four adult Muslim males to testify that they have witnessed the act.

[Rikbe]

Girl Ordered Gang-Raped in Pakistan
Tue Jul 2, 7:18 AM ET
By KHALID TANVEER, Associated Press Writer

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) - A Pakistani tribal council ordered an 18-year-old girl to be gang-raped in order to punish her family after her brother was seen walking with a girl from a higher class tribe, police said Tuesday.


The private Human Rights Commission of Pakistan demanded that all those involved in the rape, which took place June 22 in the village of Meerwala in southern Punjab province, be punished.

Police said the victim's father had filed criminal charges against the four men involved in the case. Police said they picked up eight relatives of the suspects to pressure the perpetrators into surrendering.

"We will spare no efforts to do justice" for the victim, police official Malik Saeed said.

According to the victim, the Mastoi tribe demanded punishment after her 11-year-old brother was seen walking unchaperoned with a Mastoi girl in a deserted part of the village. The boy and his sister are from the lower class Gujar tribe.

The Mastoi tribe called a meeting of the tribal council, which ordered the girl to be raped to avenge their tribal honor. The teen-ager said she was taken to a hut and assaulted as hundreds of Mastois stood outside laughing and cheering.

Pakistan has a tradition of tribal justice in which crimes or affronts to dignity are punished outside the framework of Pakistani law. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has demanded an end to punishments by tribal councils.

Kamla Hayyat, of the commission, said the group will send a fact-finding mission to the victim's village to determine what happened and provide help to her.

"The increasing incidents of terrible atrocities against women are a terrible reflection on the state of society and the status of women within it," commission chairman Afrasiab Khattak said in a statement.

Last month, an Islamic court overturned the conviction of a woman who was to be stoned to death for adultery. Zufran Bibi, 28, said she was raped and appealed her early May conviction in the conservative North West Frontier Province.

Her case prompted demonstrations and protests by hundreds of civil and women's-rights groups nationwide.

Dear Rikbe, I did read very carefully all the information you wrote and the last story was the one I had heard. Thank you. Do you think they do that out of ignorance, badness or traditions? Do you think it would help if they were taught otherwise?

[Rikbe]

Originally posted by Panchita
Dear Rikbe, I did read very carefully all the information you wrote and the last story was the one I had heard. Thank you. Do you think they do that out of ignorance, badness or traditions? Do you think it would help if they were taught otherwise?

As human beings they are not worse or better than us, it are their traditions and their religion is used to justify it. Both, women and men think they do the right thing because they do not know better. If they were thaught otherwise from childhood, they would be different than thay are now.
Don't forget that not long ago Christians did also terrible things that they thought to be the right ones.

I do not believe in born bad or good, I believe we are born with an almost empty personality but growing up makes or good or bad.

Dear Rikbe, True, we are not born bad or good, we make ourselves what we want to be. We can be born from criminals and be nice people, but a lot has to do with the example we get and we have at home. So I suppose they do it out of traditions and ignorance. The result does not change, but it is easier to accept.