Anti-women violence and the importance of digital safety
A short overview of contemporary women issues in Pakistan and why digital rights are something women need to think about more
Marrakech, Morocco. Young brides have their hand painted with henna root colourings, part of the decorative tradition, Bruno Barbey.
** By the time I sent out this letter some of the things I said about stories not being covered are no longer true, so read it in that context. Thanks.
If you arent part of a dimension of Muslim Twitter, don’t check news outlets like Dawn or Al-Jazeera, or just aren’t part of South Asian social media spaces — then you probably haven’t heard of the recent surge in femicide and patriarchal crimes that have been committed back-to-back in Pakistan (I recently saw a post to stop calling it a surge because our cognizance to the issue doesn’t mark the beginning of its existence, it just means women are gaining better platforms to speak up and are actually reporting gendered crimes). This is probably because cases of anti-women violence in this part of the world rarely make the news not only in global media but local ones as well— sometimes this is because societies that are complicit in gender-based violence (GBV) would rather these stories not get covered due to its damaging impact on the country’s public image on the international stage. Some of the biggest feminist voices I look up to haven’t said anything about recent occurrences in Pakistan (many would rather contribute the weekly feminist briefings about Afghanistan…in the way that they always have since 2001). I had been following the story of Noor Mukaddam specifically, the young woman who was brutally murdered by one of her own acquaintances, specifically beheaded by a man named Zahir Zamir Jaffer who is a dual US-Pakistani citizen (this part of the story is important since the US Embassy recently stated that he’d be tried in the case under Pakistani law meaning he gets zero US protections). Daughter of a diplomat, she was murdered by someone who was considered a public figure and who came from an absurdly rich family. For Noor, she came from an aristocratic background and her murder happened in one of the more elite areas of Islamabad which raises the question of how will women who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds ever be able to seek justice for GBV? Noor’s murder has triggered national outcry but even with the level of status she held, there are stark indicators that show the police’s lack of urgency in handling evidence in the case and the court’s tendency to use these sorts of one-time cases to establish meaningless verdicts that bring about zero change.
Days before Noor was killed, I had watched a VICE documentary on the plight of Zainab Ansari’s father, a 6-yr old girl that was kidnapped, r*ped, and murdered on her way to school. When I say the video of Noor’s father pleading with the public to hold the culprit and his family accountable, I also couldn’t help but draw the analogy between the experience of Zainab’s father with Noor. Both cases have led to widespread outrage, with Pakistani women urging their countrymen to truly have a reckoning regarding the hellhole of a nation they have created for their women. But, men never fail to disappoint, and their behavior is never isolated, it is millenniums strong and is backed by society and culture.
Some of the responses to the calls of women in Pakistan were things like “not all men”, “this happens in other countries too” or even better — “you women should speak up”.
The real answer is, yes all men. Men are the ones who knew about Noor’s murderer’s violent behavioral record, they knew about his record of sexual abuse and were not a single bit bothered. Why? Because the jeopardization of women's safety via cruel men like Zahir benefits men. It upholds violent r*pe culture, men find comfort in the dehumanization of women. There are no good men, there are no nice men, there are only men. Men are always complicit unless they are actively holding their male associates accountable, by accountable I mean genuine dedication to deconstructing these social frameworks that are wired to abuse and eventually kill women. Except instead of using their efforts to actually hold their counterparts accountable men would rather self-proclaim themselves as “good men”, they resort to being passive and think that *basic* acts of decency like being a good partner or having a neutral (and not disruptive) stance on women issues earns them some moral credit. No, “not all men” is the gender equivalent of All Lives Matter. Yes, not all rapists are men, but also yes most rapists are men. Did you know that over 92% of women are murdered by someone they know (data from the Femicide Census), does this not that most women know the men who murdered them? This means that every woman probably already knows the man to most likely harm her in her lifetime, 92% is too big of a number for me to engage with the “not all men” bullshit. It’s definitely all men, and it’ll probably be a man you know. Men underestimate the violence of their silence, they are not disturbed by the fact that a 6-yr old female child can be brutally r*ped and killed or that a young woman can be beheaded and neither would receive proper justice, this does not disrupt the well-being of their consciousness. Second, yes this happens in many countries— does that mean we should allow the normalization of such female degradation and crime? Because X does this, does that mean Y should do the same? This is a common logic used by a lot of Muslim misogynists when they draw comparisons between the West’s right-wing and their own patriarchal dispositions. I’m not arguing that they are any different, realistically people are aware of things that are in their environment or things that their identities expose them to, as a Muslim woman am I likely to know about women’s issues in the Catholic sphere? Probably not, so that logic is not fair nor valid. I’ve seen a lot of men recommend things that reveal to me that they never listen to us in the first place. Some suggest that self-defense classes be given to all women, that women have stricter curfews, or that “this is why our dads don’t want you to go out”. Better yet, in the aftermath of Noor’s death, I’ve seen men have the audacity to suggest Pakistani women “speak up”.
I’ve never seen any country with such a robust feminist movement as Pakistan, please read, read about the long history of the Aurat Movement (a feminist resistance movement whose framework I wish every feminist movement in Muslim countries began implementing). Read about Qandeel Baloch, a Pakistani popular icon who was killed by her brother for acting “immorally” (aka using social media and wearing things like tank tops and lipstick—her death was justified by the male religious elite in Pakistan). Read about Meesha Shafi, Pakistani model and Coke Studio singer who recently reported a male colleague’s sexual harassment to some of the highest courts and still had her appeals rejected (is this not speaking up?).
The Prime Minister of Pakistan blamed “Western culture” and women's clothing when questioned about the rise of violence in the country targeting women, a total dodge of even a shred of accountability. If the head of state who presents his country on national forums has this mindset, you can imagine that of the rest of the men in this society and onward. Muslim people (I am talking about men) have a tendency to use colonialism or even western intervention as a scapegoat from actually engaging in critical dialogue is *highly* needed in our respective communities in order to address the harm that (men) have not only exerted but allowed to persist (referring to the 90% of men who are bystanders of violence).
[Gendered equality has actually been decreasing over the last few years in Pakistan rather than increasing. During the annual assessment of the Global Gender Index report of 2021, Pakistan ranked a number 153 out of 156 countries (the index measures a country using four factors: health, economy, politics, and education). that means in South Asia, they ranked second to last (last being Afghanistan). Many NGOs estimate there are about 1,000 honor killings occurring every year in the country (that have been reported at least). Acid attacks are still widely common, in fact, attacking women using acid is so common that a Pakistani-American woman was attacked with acid in New York. Do you see how this paradigm followed her all the way to New York City of all places? This is why we are collectively impacted when one gendered crime happens all the way across the world, it affects all of us.]
For the sake of reiterating something that I am sure all Muslim women struggle with especially in this contemporary era, is witnessing such gruesome violence being committed against our sisters, and then also seeing men (and sometimes women) use religious shame rhetoric to go as far as justifying the murders, the rapings, the harassment. We are human, with minds and hearts. I understand that many of these misogynist assertions are not based nor backed by theological evidence but the idea that we must cope with this, that we have to — well it’s unfair, and to be frank, it’s quite absurd. To say that Muslim women don’t face exacerbated rates of violence not only from a Western standpoint but from an internal one would be a flat-out lie. The violence we face is multidimensional, it’s outside and at home, it’s in France or in Egypt— to spread this facade of an idea that we are more protected in Islamic countries is a harmful deception. This is not to say Muslim men aren't the only religious group that wields religion to justify atrocity and maintain patriarchal control over women, but to neglect the overlapping of identity, religion, and culture that has produced an overflow of male aggression and patriarchal abuse in the larger Islamic sphere is a disservice not only to today’s women but to coming generations.
As a result of the recent feminist advocacy happening in South Asia, some women are talking about how men use digital tools to also subjugate them, a side effect of technological advancements in recent years and a serious underestimation of the lengths that men will go to exert harm. I’ve talked about the weak stalker laws in my home state of Georgia that do not prosecute men for using tech such as cameras or stalker apps despite the number of cases where men do use technology to stalk women being overwhelmingly higher than that of the traditional physical form of stalking.
(This is men in all cultures where dating is stigmatized and concepts of female honour and shame are still upheld).
When we are living in a point of time where revenge porn and the distribution of intimate photos of women without consent is still rampant, it’s important that women start taking their digital protection seriously. I’ve been stalked before, digitally, physically, I've had a guy send me a picture of my home by tracking my IP address— because I was not digitally equipped, I never knew what to do and I could never properly defend myself. But women are now stepping up to the task because the state will never protect us and a lot of police do not have enough digital training to handle cases of nonconsensual images, blackmailing, or revenge porn (these are almost always being committed by men that women already know). This is even more urgent because, since the inception of COVID-19 and people’s over-exposure to the internet as a result of social isolation, many countries are seeing a drastic increase in gendered or digital sexual crimes being reported. What also makes gendered cybercrime an interesting point of concern is that women in both the West and Global South face similar rates of cyberattacks. This is something UN Women calls “Cyber-VAWG”, VAWG just means violence against women and girls. Gendered digital violence is a barrier to seeing the achievement of some very critical global development agendas, if women are the constant victims of online trolling, doing, and life threats, we will not be seeing a gender-equitable society emerge in our lifetimes especially as countries aim to close technology and education gaps. Cyber-VAWG can also be understood as a modern manifestation of cultural practices of upholding shame and fearmongering, it’s only different because today’s men can operate newer technology yet they are carrying the same practices as those that came before them. The UN Women reported that 73% of women have faced some form of online violence despite this being a developing sphere of ICT’s (information, communication, and tech). You know what else? Women’s fears regarding online security and privacy online actually contributed to a gender gap in overall internet and technology usage because as a result, many women would rather steer clear of using ICT’s and social media websites than putting themselves at risk. This translates to a deficiency in women benefitting from the multifaceted benefits of internet usage such as networking or staying in touch with world news.
On an end note, I’ll quote the UN Women (2009): “—the landscape of gender-based violence has been transformed … [but] rather than there being a dramatic reduction in violence against women, … the challenges have become more complex, the resistance to change deeper, the backlash against the empowerment of women more blatant and the methods used to uphold the status quo more sophisticated and insidious.”
A really great resource/reading list about what I’ve discussed above :
Cyber-VAWG: A Report by the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development Working Group on Broadband and Gender. This is a great report by UN Women that I think everyone should save and use as a point of reference to understand existing international laws and treaties on Cyber-VAWG.
“The Impunity That Internet Trolls Enjoy In The Rape Threats That Rana Ayyub Gets” from Intersectional Feminism— Desi Style! Rana Ayyub is the clearest example of cyber violence which attacks women who are opinionated and are hyper-visible.
Cyberwomen: Holistic Digital Security Training Curriculum for Women Human Rights Defenders. An amazing 340-pg curriculum for women seeking to gain a better understanding of holistic digital security and the principles of cybersecurity and possibly train the women around them. Available in Arabic, English, and Spanish.
Gender, Surveillance, Privacy : Building a Feminist Internet. This is a great piece on Latin American women tackling GBV in online spaces, its also a great source to take strategies from.
“Embedding digital security in feminist resistance building”, okay I found this piece the most helpful because it gives you a brief rundown of Cyber-VAWG from a historical standpoint, describing the development of it and then providing statistics and a Covid-19 perspective.
9 Feminist Digital Security Guides that you Must Read from Intersectional Feminism— Desi Style! I loved this because it included a lot of creative ways for women to implement digital security, and turned it into something digestible and cute. Digital security for the girlies if I may say.
“Pakistan’s revenge porn law is stronger than most. For one woman, that made no difference” is a sharp in-depth report on the fallacies of Pakistan’s current digital protection laws which mostly work against victims, I liked reading this because these kinds of laws are the ones most countries have which allow Cyber-VAWG to go unpunished.
“Disicipline and punish” by Arifa Noor where she basically questions whether the road to justice in Noor’s case has only been sufficient due to its high-profile nature and heightened publicity, giving us a very sobering take to think about as we witness the entire case.
“Cling on to fiction” is a great piece by Umair Javed where he shortly deconstructs a lot of the tropes used to stifle feminist voices in Pakistan.