The Express Tribune 14 November 2020
Case for castration
Rape, sexual harassment of women other suchlike crimes seem to be taking on epidemic proportions in the country. On Thursday, the police claimed they had arrested a man in Kashmore suspected of kidnapping and subjecting a woman and her five-year-old daughter to gang rape. On the same day in Karachi, a four-year-old boy died in a hospital after he was raped and tortured. Hardly a week passes without such monstrous incidents happening in the country.
By now the government should have set up a commission to closely examine all aspects of the issue and recommend measures to set things right. But so far the authorities have not dealt with such a grave issue with the seriousness that it deserves. Whenever a rape or rape-and-murder incident occurs, the authorities seem to act on the spur of the moment. Sometimes the alleged culprit(s) are arrested, imprisoned or executed. This has been going on endlessly. Experts agree that the issue of rape and sexual violence needs a holistic approach, and if rape and sexual violence cannot be entirely eliminated, they can be drastically reduced if these issues are addressed with all seriousness.
Despite rape having become a routine occurrence, the government has not even announced that it is thinking about chemical castration of rapists to instill fear in such potential criminals. Chemical castration of rapists has given positive results around the world as a deterrent against rape and other sex-related crimes. Many have been hanged or jailed for rape in Pakistan. Sadly though, even the death sentence has so far had no noticeable impact on sexual violence. The horrible Kashmore and Karachi incidents should move the government to act to prevent such brutal and dastardly acts in future. The Kashmore incident shows the lower depths to which the morally depraved can sink. Not only three men, they were reportedly three, repeatedly raped the mother and child but asked the woman to provide another girl in exchange for the release of her daughter. It is time to make rapists have the bitter aftertaste of their monstrous deeds.
Covid-19: on the rise again
After a few weeks of respite, the number of Covid-19 cases in the country is on the rise again. The number of new cases of the lethal infection and associated deaths are matching the levels which were last seen in July. It seems that this time, the infection curve is rising at a sharper rate than before. The virus is once again claiming the lives of our first responders, including doctors. And there are some notable casualties also including Chief Justice of Peshawar High Court Justice Vaqar Ahmed Seth and PPP leader Jam Madad Ali who was an MPA from Sindh. This alarming situation has prompted the government to start reimposing strict measures that put large swathes of the country into a forced lockdown.
While a more general lockdown, as seen earlier in the year, has not yet been imposed, the government is again starting to identify and lock down several hotspots. Wedding and cinema halls have been directed to stop holding indoor events while restaurants and shopping centres have been told to wind up earlier than usual. There are also calls for giving students an early and extended winter vacation so that schools can close and not be a source for the spread of the deadly infection. A ban on large public gatherings looms on the horizon.
Man is a social animal, they say. But what happens when he is restricted to act social. Not only does this have a psychological impact – as we saw for the better part of the year – but it carries an economic cost as well. In a country like Pakistan, which has been fraught with skyrocketing inflation, survival has become even more critical for the general public that had been suffering from depleting incomes even before the virus had hit them. Many businesses faced tremendous losses due to the lockdown and they are now unwilling to undergo another lockdown. Schools too are reluctant to stop operating, not just for economic reasons but also to overcome the challenges posed by online classes and the pressure to complete the syllabus in time.
Even though news of a largely effective vaccine being developed offers some hope, it will be months before it will become available. And even then, it may boil down to who can afford the vaccine. Being only able to supply 50 million doses – 10 million of which have already been booked by the UK – by the end of the year, countries will struggle to secure the vaccine for themselves. Since only First World countries have the monetary capability of securing high number of doses from private pharmaceuticals, it would mean that poor countries would have less of a chance to fight the virus. The situation could further expose the pressing issue of severe inequality around the world.
So on how to deal with the virus in the meantime, a right balance needs to be found between health and economics – as Prime Minister Imran Khan has been advocating since the very beginning. This virus has shown that for a cash-based and brick-and-mortar economy like Pakistan, a lockdown will spell an economic and social doom – and perhaps even a political one. When we decided to take off our masks in public at the ebb of the first wave, we showed that we had not learnt our lesson. With 7,092 people dead across the country – 37 in the last 24 hours – and 352,296 down with the virus, can we now at least show a greater willingness to do what is necessary to swiftly bring the graph of the infections down again?
