by Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal
I am only a young girl. My name may never appear in a newspaper, my photograph may never be shown on television, and perhaps no one beyond my family will ever know what happened to me. Yet something happened that has changed the meaning of every tomorrow. A crime was committed against my body, but everyone now seems to be asking questions about my character, my clothes, my movements, my friendships, my silence and my future. I therefore ask one question—not only of myself, but of my family, my society and my State: How shall I live my life now?
Shall I live as though I am guilty of the crime committed against me? Shall I lower my eyes whenever people look at me? Shall I abandon my education, my dreams and my confidence because a criminal violated my dignity? Shall my family regard me as a burden, a source of shame, or a wound that must be hidden behind the walls of the house? Or shall I be told, with courage and compassion, that the shame belongs entirely to the perpetrator and never to the victim?
These questions are not imaginary. They are being asked silently in thousands of homes across Pakistan.
The official numbers themselves are disturbing, though they reveal only a fraction of the truth. Data presented before Parliament recorded more than 173,000 cases of violence against women between 2021 and 2024, including thousands of reported rape and gang-rape cases, honour killings, domestic violence incidents and nearly 90,000 kidnappings and abductions. In 2024 alone, independent monitoring recorded more than 32,000 gender-based violence cases, including over 5,000 reported rapes. Child sexual abuse remains equally horrifying. NGO’s monitoring recorded thousands of cases involving children, with more than nine children reported to be abused every day in 2025.
Behind every number is a human being. Behind every statistic is a face, a family, a broken childhood or a young woman wondering whether she still belongs to the world around her.
And yet the most frightening number may not be the number of crimes. It is the number of criminals who escape accountability. Conviction rates for rape and other grave offences remain disastrously low. A society cannot protect its daughters merely by announcing severe punishments in its laws. If the offender believes that investigation will be weak, witnesses will disappear, families will be pressured into compromise, and justice will arrive too late, the law becomes a threat written on paper rather than a shield held in reality.
Our first duty, therefore, is to change the question. We must stop asking a violated girl, “Why were you there?” and begin asking, “Why was the criminal allowed to harm you?” We must stop examining the honour of the victim and examine the conduct of the offender. Honour does not reside in the silence of a frightened child. Honour resides in justice.
The family has perhaps the most sacred responsibility. A daughter who has suffered sexual violence does not need suspicion; she needs an embrace. She does not need interrogation; she needs belief. She does not need to be hidden; she needs to be protected. If parents turn their backs upon her because of society’s whispers, the crime is followed by another cruelty—social abandonment.
The State, too, must answer. Why should a survivor travel from police station to hospital, from hospital to court, and from court to another office, repeatedly narrating the most painful chapter of her life? Why should forensic evidence be lost, investigations delayed and cases buried beneath procedural obstacles? Anti-rape laws, specialised courts, crisis cells, forensic laboratories and mechanisms such as Zainab Alert can have meaning only when they function with urgency and integrity.
The apparent rise in reported cases should not automatically be interpreted as a sudden discovery of evil. Greater awareness, media scrutiny and improved reporting mechanisms have encouraged some victims to come forward. But beneath these numbers lies the darker reality of underreporting—fear of retaliation, family pressure, economic dependence, social stigma and distrust of institutions. The low official rape rate cannot therefore be mistaken for a low incidence of sexual violence.
There are other forces that demand attention. Poverty and social inequality create vulnerability. Children working outside protected family environments may become easy targets. Power is frequently abused by acquaintances, relatives, neighbours and authority figures. The misuse of information technology has opened another dangerous frontier through online grooming, cyber-harassment and the easy circulation of violent and exploitative material. Children require digital protection as much as physical protection.
But let us not imagine that harsher punishment alone will cure this disease. A severe sentence that is rarely imposed cannot deter as effectively as a just sentence that is certain and swift. What Pakistan needs is not merely the multiplication of penalties but the certainty of accountability: competent investigation, reliable forensic evidence, protection of witnesses, speedy trials and an end to settlements that sacrifice justice at the altar of family reputation.
Education must begin before tragedy occurs. Children should be taught, in language appropriate to their age, about personal boundaries, bodily safety, consent and the importance of speaking to a trusted adult. Parents must know whom their children meet, where they go and what they encounter online. Religious scholars, teachers and community leaders must speak unequivocally against victim-blaming and the misuse of honour as a weapon against the vulnerable.
And now I return to the young girl.
“How shall I live?”
The answer must come from all of us: Live. Study. Dream. Walk with your head held high. Laugh again. Build your future. You are not the crime committed against you. You are not the shame of the criminal. You are not a broken reputation. You are a human being whose dignity remains intact.
And to her family, society and State, her question carries another demand: Will you stand beside me, or will you make me suffer twice?
The true measure of a nation is not how loudly it condemns a crime after it occurs, but how faithfully it protects the innocent before it occurs, how firmly it pursues the guilty afterwards, and how tenderly it restores the life of the survivor.
If Pakistan can answer that question with justice rather than silence, compassion rather than suspicion, and accountability rather than compromise, then perhaps one frightened young girl will eventually discover that her future was not stolen from her.
It was only delayed—and her nation helped her reclaim it.
