From Photo Sessions to Reality

For once the eloquent ex- City Banker Prime Minister was at a complete loss for words. He stood stunned and speechless. His ever fluent, well stocked ‘vocabulary for all seasons’ coming to a grinding halt. After all Mukhtaran Mai was the first rape victim that the Prime Minister had ever seen or met. There was a long and uneasy silence. Then came a few words of support - followed by a long speech of promises. By then the photographers had moved in, taking away any left over chances for a serious conversation. Loaded with pictures and promises, Mukhtaran walked out of the PM house, back into the rape-supportive society of potent ‘jirgas’ and impotent courts.

The Prime Minister is an educated and accomplished person to understand that a photo session can do nothing to stop the 4380 rape cases that take place in the Islamic Republic each year (a rape every 2 hours: HRCP 2001 report.) More conservative estimates speak of a rape every 6 hours and a gang rape every 4 days. Eighty percent of these cases are simply not reported. Those reported become a source of endless agony and anguish for the victims. The rapists are protected and may even be rewarded with a ministerial assignment. It is a matter of shame that the best we can offer a rape victim is a UK visa or a picture with the prime Minister.

How come a Prime Minister who can negotiate a billion dollar loan during an after dinner chat, finds it impossible to put in place even a rudimentary system that gives support and justice to the 4380 yearly rape victims of Pakistan. After warmly seeing off Mukhtaran Mai, did he ask himself a cold question - why is the Islamic Republic so clueless, callous, insensitive and unjust for one of its most frequently committed crimes? How and where does a victim go about reporting her tale of hurt and misery? What is it that the state machinery must always do but almost never does? Is it easy for a rape victim to get an FIR registered? How is a victim medically examined, if at all she is? How is a chemical report made? How does the police investigate a rape case, if ever it does so? How is it that a rape witnessed by the whole village goes unnoticed and unidentified by the police? How long does it take a court to deliver justice, if any one remembers such a thing to have happened in the recent past.

Karachi for its 15 million population has three under-staffed and under-equipped medico-legal centres , where a rape victim may possibly be examined. A female doctor would not always be present. The examination room is not entirely private. The examination tables are permanently missing. The examination kit is never available, and there is no mechanism for it to arrive. Depending upon the generosity of the doctor or cash in the victim’s wallet, some one is each time dispatched to buy an examination kit (consisting of some five items costing approximately Rs.300). The state spends millions in sending ministers abroad for medical treatment, but does not feel it necessary to provide even such basic provisions for its rape victims. Each rape case is treated with such naivette and incompetence as if it was the first ever case that happened in this otherwise pious land. The doctor does not have a check list of what must be examined. How samples must be collected, packed, handled, transported and preserved is left to the mood of the examining doctor, police and the laboratory staff. Most surprisingly, the register in which a doctor records the examination results has a different format (and contents) in each of the three medico-legal centres. Thus the results could be somewhat different depending upon where the victim was examined. A policeman is required to carry the collected samples to the only authorised chemical and bacteriological laboratory in Karachi. Subject to his inclination and the availability of transport, he may decide to keep them at his residence or police station for a few days before he remembers (or is reminded) to actually deliver the samples. Depending upon the pressure (or the lack of it) from-high ups, the laboratory could take any where from 3 days to three months for doing the required tests - something that could be easily done in one hour. It seems as if this loophole-riddled system has been purposely and perfectly designed to ensure that a rapist can never be punished in a court of law.

In order to design a humane, convenient and efficient system, some one needed to empathize for a moment as if this incident happened to his or her own family. If every one who wants to set up a factory forever talks of one-window operation, why can the same not be done for a rape victim. Why can not the government set up at least half a dozen prominently located rape crisis centres in every city. Fully staffed by female police and doctors, these centres could provide (on a 24 hour basis) the FIR, the medical examination and the lab tests under the same roof. A standard operating procedure, a standard format for recording results and a standard examination kit, to be identically used in all crisis centres of the country could be determined. It must be mandatory to treat the victim with utmost respect and confidentiality. The requirements of FIR, medical examination and chemical tests must be completed under one roof in no more than two hours, and the victim given a copy of all results. Finally it would facilitate the victims and act as a deterrent to the rapists if the entire arrangement was publicly advertised in press and TV. None of this requires a World Bank or an IMF loan. All this can be done by the ordinary people of Pakistan – provided the government shifts its focus from photo sessions to the real needs of its helpless and captive customers.