The plight of women in Gilgit - Baltistan

Violence against daughter of Eve

A teenage girl was reportedly abused sexually by an aged retired Subedar in Yasin valley of Ghizar district. The incident was reported in local newspapers.

The influential subedar was successful in blocking the efforts to register an FIR against himself. According to a comment by the resident secretary of Human Rights Commission the girl has instead been kept in custody for the past five days. The police, according to reports, have tried their level best to include the name of another "innocent" young man, Theoth Shah" in this case. The general public has shown disgust over the entire issue apart from the usual helplessness.

The fifth year of the twenty first century has seen more and more of violence against women. From Shaista Almani to Sonia Naz, From Mukhtaran Mai to many other the press has played a very important role in exposing the brutalities that are going on, often unreported.

The women of northern areas (Gilgit-Baltistan) face an equal share of cruelty and injustice. A cruel man, Sakhi Ahmad Jan, killed three women of his family, including his mother, in order to get their eyes for a certain magical act, on the directions of a brainless Pir. The sister of that man from Oshkandas, a town at a distance of some kms from the hub of northern areas, was badly injured but survived. The killer and the brainless Pir are in police custody and cases have been registered against them. Many women committed suicide in the Ghizar district during the past one year. And, unfortunately most of them where from the same Yasin Valley. Now this immoral incident of devastating magnitude has further threatened the status of women in the region.

While our society has high claims for having progressed on intellectual notes, these incidents arouse many doubts that must be answered by the society for the betterment of all of us. Mere condemning can't solve the issue. It is necessary to use each and every mean to uproot this evil. We can't stay eye-and-mouth she. It is our duty to rise and rise with elegance and dignity to address the issues that weaken our social lives and moral values.

I would not ask the government to change the FIR system that has haunted justice since the day one. There would be no one to hear that. But I know that I can appeal to all of us, the ones who are ready to change the society, to speak up about it.

A society that has lost its civil values is no more a society. A society where the learned and the skillful stay calm despite of all the menace in their surrounding is bound to stagnate. It is upon us. Whether we want to stagnate or create the ripple of change is on our own disposal.