being, not to protect them. The
legal system cannot behomes it doesn’t affect
you. It also isn’t enough to just read about
these happenings in the newspaper and shake your
head sadly and sigh about the “sickos out
there” or how the “lack of education”
is bringing everyone down. What are you willing
to do to make the situation better, even if it’s
for just one person? Because if you aren’t
willing to do anything, you might as well be sitting
and cheering on the sidelines when it happens to
someone else.
Those of us who believe that
violence against women has reached unacceptable
proportions have to voice this opinion and voice
it loudly enough until the “powers that be”
start to pay attention. If you can write letters,
write them. If you can write an article about it,
do that too. If you are well connected enough to
know someone in a position of power, tell them how
you feel about this state of affairs. If you are
connected to a school, find out what it would take
to get an NGO to come to that school and speak about
domestic violence, or reproductive health, or any
other issue that would help to empower our girls.
Then do it.
In a perfect world, the President
of Pakistan would realize that this cannot go on
for a single day longer. He would declare an emergency
situation, and abrogate the Constitution to declare
that whoever enacts any sort of violent crime upon
a girl or a woman is a criminal at the highest level,
to the point of committing treason, because anyone
who harms as valuable a citizen as a present or
future mother is killing the country as surely as
if he were betraying the entire nation to our worst
enemies. For further measure he would double the
punishment for
