You can never really expect a ‘good’ morning in Pakistan.
After waking up from the sleep last morning, I logged into my facebook account to just get a daily dose of news updates. As I scrolled down my home page, a link shared by a friend caught my eyes that completely bewildered me. The news headline read, “Pakistan ranked as THIRD most dangerous country in the world for women.” I tried to ignore the news ‘labelling’ it a false, rumor story but then I thought to undergo a process of research and thinking on the it.
The process that I did was just a track down of past few years of Pakistan where extremism, radicalization and terrorism had dominated the image of the nation, and where poor-stricken and underprivileged women were often seen as innocent victims of the disease of extremism and terrorism. I recalled how women in Pakistan are just not ‘equally’ treated like men; how they are deprived of their basic rights to live with freedom – free from all sorts of impositions; how they are less accessible to education; how they are less accessible to different sectors in Pakistan when it comes to employment; and how they are treated when what they do is just ‘defend’ their rights or ‘voice’ their concerns.
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On 13th June Dawn released WikiLeaks cables from the US Embassy in Islamabad in 2006 in which US Ambassador Ryan Crocker raising 
I do not know if any of you noticed yesterdays Dawn newspaper [27th March] page 4 – which showed a picture of a 17-year old [underage] Tharparker rape victim. Its possible many may be aware of her, a local political leader from Tharparker had gang raped her on 24th January and since then she has been screaming for justice, this case has become the talk of the town in Interior Sindh but has failed to capture the fascination of the nationwide electronic and print media. Dawn did in some may have tried to help bring attention to the cause but it went a bit overboard, choosing to publish her picture and name sitting in front of Hyderabad Press Club – practically raping her all over again, and now in public – instead of protecting her even more, they go all out publishing her name and picture but did not so much as even bother to publish the name of the political leader who gang raped her in Tharparker
Much out cry has been heard regarding the Daewoo rape incident which has lead many human rights organizations working hand-in-hand with the police to hopefully arrest the perpetrators – but today I was shocked to read in Dawn (10th Feb 2010 – Page 9) while discussing the story – the “correspondent” very casually mentions the name of the victim with such intricate details of the crime that it seems as if he might actually be quoting the actual FIR verbatim
“SIALKOT, Feb 9: Police have yet to arrest the second alleged rapist in the kidnap-cum-rape case of a bus hostess here in Sialkot, Dawn has learnt. Daewoo bus hostess A**** Q**** [censorship added] alleged that Irshad Bhatti, of Gujrat, along with Sarfraz allegedly kidnapped her late on Saturday and raped her. ”