Patriarchy: women’s torment
WITH the images that are transported directly on to
your phone screens, life has become a torment with
all that is happening in this rather ugly world of ours.
Often what you watch affects you badly and scars your
soul.
One such image is that of a woman surrounded by about a
dozen men being escorted away from the SUV in which she
was presumably brought to the rocky wilderness. A video
recording shows her walking a few steps with amazing calm
and poise — her back is towards the men — and then she
stops.
Next a man raises a pistol, points it towards the back of her
chador-draped head and fires several shots. Before
collapsing under a hail of bullets, Bano Satakzai appeared
to express no fear, no anxiety, no emotion; offered no
reaction. Whether it was outright resignation at her fate,
defiance or stoicism is difficult to say.
The incident happened several weeks ago in Degari,
Balochistan, we are told, and only became public when the
men who’d brought her there for a ‘karo kari’ (‘honour’
killing) posted a horrific video of her murder on social
media. A man was also said to have been killed at the same
spot, but only the woman’s murder was captured clearly on
camera. Their crime was initially said to be a marriage of
choice, invoking the family and tribe’s wrath.
Pakistan’s ‘vigour’ in prosecuting cases of crimes
against women is another story.
But then, the Balochistan chief minister criticised the media
and social media users for not doing proper ‘investigative
journalism’ as the couple were not married. In fact, a tribal
chief or jirga had found them guilty of having an
extramarital affair and sentenced them to death. Despite
this ‘clarification’, gratefully, Sarfaraz Bugti hastened to
add nobody had the right to take their lives and he stood
with the victims and would ensure justice was served.
While nobody said who took the man’s life, it was
emphasised that the woman was killed by her own brother
because she had dishonoured the family. Belatedly, the
Balochistan government says it arrested 11 men involved
but, given the conviction rate in crimes against women, one
can be sure once media attention shifts, the matter could be
brushed under the carpet as has happened many times in
the past.
The killers made sure that the woman’s execution was
recorded and shared later on social media. The man was
killed too but the focus on the woman being killed seemed
designed to serve as a warning to other women to never
‘step out of line’.
Yes, it all makes sense in the beautiful world we have
created where patriarchy reigns supreme. Crimes against
women are by no means restricted only to our society; they
are a worldwide phenomenon. However, Pakistan’s ‘vigour’
in prosecuting such cases is another story.
In Pakistan, the conviction rate for those prosecuted for
‘honour’ killings and rape, besides other gender-based
cases of violence, stands at 0.5 per cent. Yes, I will repeat:
half a per cent, which, in other words, means that 99.5pc of
those perpetrating violence against women get away scot-
free. Legislation and induction of women police officers to
investigate/ prosecute such crimes is yet to show in the
statistics. This percentage in this instance is from the over
32,000 recorded, registered cases in 2024. It’s safe to
assume many more cases aren’t even reported or
registered.
The truth is that even in the West, women are battered,
even killed. They are known not to receive protection when
their own partner, for example, is the transgressor.
Institutional bias is often evidenced in such cases where
women under threat are either not believed or are ignored
and the authorities don’t do enough to prevent domestic
violence, even if they spring into action after violent
incidents.
In our case, the vulnerability of women is exacerbated by
the utter and complete lack of interest of the law-
enforcement machinery in not just stopping violent men,
despite being alerted in instances, but also by the fact that
after a crime is committed, the investigation and
prosecution do not seem to be a priority either.
The result is whether it was Qandeel Baloch murdered by
her own brother, who had no qualms living off his sister’s
income but felt she dishonoured the family by becoming a
bold social media star a few years ago; or the most recent
blood-curdling torture and consequent death of a 19-year
old woman, whose psychopath husband did unmentionable
things to her; or earlier this year the brother who killed his
two sisters because they’d married of their own choice — all
victims are women.
Each instance is one of control and of repudiation of a
woman as an equal, with rights identical to men. The world
has moved in varying degrees to acknowledge legally and
societally the equality of women, despite resistance from
those long conditioned by patriarchy. We seem far behind
as we speak.
Each report of gender-based violence or even
discrimination pushes me deeper into despair. If half of our
society is not prepared to relinquish control over the
remaining half and embrace it as a diverse equal, imagine
the collective intellectual and decision-making deficit that is
created. This system has to be dismantled, torn down
before we can build something better, more equal, fairer
and saner.
I am reminded of John Lennon’s words: “You may say I am
dreamer, but I am not the only one.” I wish I had Lennon’s
optimism in saying I am not the only one, and that an equal,
fairer society is indeed possible. And that men could be
reformed to appreciate that patriarchy is a major
impediment to our development and that women’s equality
is a matter of right not something that owes to a man’s
benevolence.
But every day we furnish evidence we are moving further
and further away from being more inclusive. We appear
determined to condemn ourselves to torment such as the
one that the images from Degari brought us. Where can we
realistically go from here?
