That’s all the good news for now. Here’s more bad news. In Pakistan, a girl of 13 was gang-raped by four men, and now she and her family are being persecuted because her family refused to kill her. That’s what they were supposed to do, you see, because the gang rape was her crime, not the crime of the men who did it to her. It’s a “tradition.” (Funny how the story never mentions the word “Islam.” No, “funny” isn’t the right word…)
The Soomros have faced isolation, fear and intimidation from the four men Kainat accused of raping her, and from the members of the small village who were afraid of challenging moral laws which have been in existence for centuries.
Moral laws? Not religious laws? Nothing to do with the majority religion?
The film, which was selected for screening in the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, retells the story of the young girl’s attack while walking home from school down a narrow village street by a shop where Kainat says the owner, Shaban Saikh, and three other men including a father and son held her down and sexually assaulted her.
The village declared her “kari”, or a black virgin, and ordered her family to carry out an honor killing to end the shame a rape victim brings to a family, according to Pakistani culture.
And religion. The culture is rooted in the religion. The god of that religion hates women.
The alleged rapists beat her father and one of her brothers. Her older brother went missing for three months and was found murdered.
But Kainat’s parents refused to kill their daughter, instead deciding to take up her cause in a legal system which places the burden of proof on the victim.
The rapists attacked relatives of the victim because they refuse to murder the victim. It’s so twisted it’s hard to read without squirming.
When Kainat attends court she undergoes a barrage of “nasty” questions, up to 300 at a time, including “what part of your clothing did you remove?” or “who raped you first?”.
The presiding judge is affronted that Kainat has brought the charges, and rules against her in part because she has accused a father and son of a gang rape.
“In his view,” the film’s narrator says, “he said that would never happen in Pakistan” and describes Kainat’s accusations “as a product of her own fantasy”.
The men are acquitted, and, in an interview with the film makers, appear bewildered at why their accuser didn’t just stay at home “and keep quiet”.
They see their acquittal as proof Kainat “does not have good character. If she was a decent woman, she would have sat at home, silent.”
A decent “woman” of 13 sits at home silent after four men in her town gang-rape her, murder her brother, and beat up her father and another brother. That makes a lot of sense. Victims of crimes are supposed to imprison themselves and shut up so that the criminals can have a pleasant life. It’s gruesome.