Adil Najam
Sometimes one is left completely speechless. And I was upon seeing this picture in the Daily Times (21 April) of a man beating his wife as their son looks on.
But the real story here is about a society that chooses to loose its speech and prefers to remain silent in the face of a wide scale menace of acute domestic violence and spousal (and familial) abuse of women.
This is not something that is restricted only to the poorest classes. Although it is often hidden behind ‘sufaid poshi’ such violence against women is more common in our society than most of us would care to accept. Remember, for example, the case of former Pakistan cricket captain Moin Khan who was taken in custody after beating his wife while drunk.
I wonder what the child in this photograph will grow up thinking. I wonder how many children have grown up witnessing such scenes. I wonder what such emotional scars have done to them.
It is indeed true that such incidents of violence happen all over the world. There is no evidence at all that they happen more in Pakistan than elsewhere. In terms of reported cases they may be even less. But that is not the point. This is not a competition.
Saying that it happens everywhere or that it happens even more in other places is neither an excuse nor a consolation. One case would, in my opinion, be one too many. And there are clearly much more than one. As Pakistanis – no, as human beings – we must speak against such violence everywhere; but, first within our own society.
It has to be the combination of
• awareness
• enforcement
• social support network for victims
• economic empowerment and independence of women
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
“With no respect, you have no relationship”
Video 1
Video 2
You can’t put the message better than these video ads.
It’s also the story of a man beating his wife as the photographer (and the public) looks on. Bertrand Russell was right: There is no such thing as an innocent bystander!
True that this may be a global problem but keeping in mind the regional context of this photo and our own religious, cultural and social values which declare that women are second class citizens either explicitly or implicitly, this scenario will keep repeating regardless of social class until we stop being hypocrites in every sense of the word and stop living in denial. Whereas men are perpetrators of domestic violence mostly, responsibility of relagating women to second class status and thus getting roughed up also lies with women to some extent.
Well, the main reason is that men feel more inclined to hit because they have a sense of control over their wives. If the women were educated or in any other way not wholly dependent on their husbands for everything, their position would be a lot better.
Of course, this goes back to education….