Woman gang-raped on moving train in Pakistan

Woman gang-raped on moving train in Pakistan
Photo: Muslim woman waiting. Source: © Taymaz Valley/Flickr, 2020.

03-06-2022

Kirsten O’Connell

Pakistan and Human Rights Researcher

A young woman has allegedly been raped by three men on a moving train in Pakistan; another incident that has shocked the South Asian country in the rise of sexual violence. According to the Railway Police chief Faisal Shahkar on Tuesday, the 25 year old mother of two children was on board the train last week when she was lured to an empty compartment by a ticket checker where three men raped her. The police have arrested two suspects since Monday when the incident came to light and a third was arrested on Tuesday according to Shahkar. The local reports said the security and administration of the Bahauddin Zakaria Express, heading to Pakistan’s largest city of Karachi from Multan, is in the hands of a private company. The incident has drawn anger from human rights bodies, activists and the public as most people have called for stringent punishment to the culprits. One man told Pakistani broadcaster Geo “I wish to see those behind this cruel act hanged by their throats”. The prominent Pakistani newspaper Dawn called the incident “a ghastly crime” and questioned why proper security arrangements were not made in the train. “Another horrific incident of sexual violence has come to light, underscoring how a cavalier approach to security arrangements can embolden criminally inclined men to indulge their worst instincts”. “[Women’s] safety is the barometer of a nation’s values” said Dawn. However, more than 14,000 women have been raped in Pakistan – nearly 11 a day – in the past four years, according to official data, but fewer than three percent of the offenders were convicted. The faulty investigations, a flawed justice system and social taboos that discourage victims from seeking justice are the factors behind the low conviction rate. “This figure might be the tip of the iceberg because most cases aren’t reported,” said the National Bureau of Police, which compiled the statistics. The Pakistani parliament passed a new anti-rape law last year that allows courts to order the chemical castration of offenders in some cases, but very little has been changed since.  The new law was enacted in response to the gang rape of a Pakistani-French mother in front of her children on a highway in the eastern city of Lahore (Aljazeera, 2022). 

Sources and further reading: Al Jazeera. (2022, June 1). Outrage in Pakistan after woman gang-raped on moving train. Sexual Assault News | Al Jazeera. Retrieved June 3, 2022, from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/6/1/outrage-in-pakistan-after-woman-gang-raped-on-moving-train