Thread by @AuratMarchKHI

It is estimated that 93% of Pakistani women have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lifetime. And, there remains a stigma around reporting harassment here owing to the fact that the victim-..
#AuratMarch2021 #PatriarchyKaPandemic #MeToo

survivors and their families are often silenced by the criminal justice system - including police, legislature and judiciary - & by society as a whole.

Consequently, these cases often go unregistered because victim-survivors are gaslighted, victim-blamed, slut-shamed..

& risk developing the status of “social pariahs” whilst fighting an uphill battle; the financial legal costs are another hurdle in & of themselves. The guilt is, unfortunately, always associated with the victim-survivor rather than the perpetrator.

Even filing of cases have had little to no impact on abusers, who continue to profit from their systemically privileged stature in society. Our state institutions which should safeguard rights of the oppressed (i.e. the victim-survivors of harassment) terribly fail do so.

As a result many victim-survivors prefer turning to social media to seek justice. They gather the courage to go public with their accounts of being violated in a deeply judgmental & abuser-friendly society like ours. But, here, too, (alleged) abusers use their social..

& financial capital to implicate the former in the legal battle of "defamation" cases. This further discourages victim-survivors from reporting harassment & the cycle of abuse continues indefinitely.

In view of this, we demand that defamation should be decriminalized, and the assailant assumed guilty until proven innocent.
We should shape laws to make it safer for people to report crimes, and refrain from victim-blaming, slut-shaming and otherwise guilt-tripping them.

Doubting victim-survivors' accounts and charging them with defamation are among the patriarchy's tools of violence against marginalized gender and sexual groups, and we need to dismantle them - now more than ever before.

#AuratMarch2021 #PatriarchyKaPandemic #MeToo