Lahore: The gang-rape of a woman in front of her children after her car broke down on a motorway has created outrage and protests in Pakistan, because of the police who appeared to blame the victim for travelling alone.
Fifteen people have been arrested in connection with the gang-rape. The woman had called police when she ran out of fuel but, as she waited for help, two men broke the windows of her car, dragged her and her two children out of the vehicle and attacked and raped her multiple times in front of the children. They then stole her jewellery, cash and bank cards.
Outrage increased when Umar Sheikh, the police investigator, told media that the woman should have known better than to travel alone at night. He said no one in Pakistani society would “allow their sisters and daughters to travel alone so late” and she should have taken a safer highway and made sure she had enough fuel for the journey. The victim is a resident of France, and Sheikh said she “mistook that Pakistani society is just as safe”.
His comments created anger with many people seeing them as yet another example of a culture of victim-blaming in cases of sexual violence in Pakistan, where women who report cases are often treated as criminals.
The attack came just days after the kidnapping, rape and murder of a five-year-old girl in Karachi.
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